SimCity in Social Studies - Was it beneficial?

Video games are caught up in an endless battle between parents and children. Parents saying that screen time negatively affects children, and children saying that screen time isn’t as bad as parents think it is. The 7th graders at the ZIS Middle School recently had a sustainability unit in social studies. In this unit, they played SimCity, a video game in class. But was it beneficial? One student says no. “In SimCity, the concept is to make the buildings taller and to upgrade them, real cities usually spread. SimCity can’t simulate that, the government does not usually build houses. The people control what they build on their land, and that may not be a skyscraper.” Despite what this anonymous student said, a lot of students believe the opposite is true.

21 7th grade students were surveyed using the question “How much do you think playing Sim City helped your understanding of a sustainable city?” 15 of them said that they thought SimCity helped their understanding of a sustainable city.

Results. (This question used a scale of 1-5, 1 being not beneficial, 5 being very beneficial)

To figure out if SimCity was beneficial, I interviewed Ms. Heller - a 7th-grade social studies teacher. Overall, she thought SimCity was beneficial, but she did say there may have been problems accompanying SimCity. She thought that people were potentially playing SimCity too much outside of class. And when I asked students if they thought they played too much SimCity out of class, a few said yes. One student said, “Yes, I got very addicted because once you start adding things and making progress you don't want to stop.”

Ms. Heller also identified another problem with SimCity. She said, “I think SimCity does a better job of giving students an idea of the complexity of building a city and keeping people happy. Building a sustainable city adds another level of complexity that I don’t think SimCity is designed to achieve.” Some of these things are the fact that in SimCity, you gradually unlock services that you need in your city. For example, until you reach a certain level, your city doesn’t need police, sewage, or even hospitals. So the thought that SimCity taught children about sustainable cities is debated.

While most of the students thought that SimCity was helpful to their understanding of SimCity, some didn’t. The answer from Ms. Heller was also conflicting. Although certain complexities of running a city are included, others are not. Therefore we will simply have to wait and see as the unit comes to a close if SimCity really was beneficial.

Thanks so much to Ms. Heller, Mr. Marcus, Mr. Brennan, and Mr. Taylor for helping me with this story. It wouldn’t have been the same without your help!