Civ3 in school?

[banarieo]

Hello -

My daughter's sixth grade class is doing a HUGE Ancient Civilization project during the second half of the year, culminating in a Faire where they are expected to wear costumes, bring food from the Civs they studied, etc.

I'm guessing this is part of the regular 6th grade cirriculum (we're in California) and was wondering if anyone has used Civ3 as an aid to study how ancient civilizations may have developed. I'm thinking of having a LAN PTW set-up for the Faire, with large monitors so people can watch over the players' shoulders.

Since this would be June 2005, Civ4 would be out. Any additional features that might aid in this project? Do you think Firaxis and/or Infogrames would be interested in assisting?

Any experiences along this line? Any suggestions/thoughts?

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[ManOfMiracles]

An interesting thought. Are you taking a team of experienced players to run the game? The learning curve for gameplay is a bit too steep for a casual passer-by to pick it up in that type of setting. I would also recommend an ancient scenario which would place only old civs in their real locations on a true world map. You would also want to make certain the civs being studied are ones represented in the game.

I think the major downside to this idea is gameplay is pretty much the same for all civs so there is no sense of the real cultures involved. While a Civ3 display would be entertaining, I think the space might be better utilized by a more informative and historically accurate display. But that is just my opinion...

 

[Turner]

It occasionally pops up about using Civ3 (or any civ, for that matter) in a classroom environment.

Might want to have a look around and see what you can find. Although it's been months since this was brought up. You'll need to set it to look farther back than the last month on the forum page.

Try this thread, this one (sorta)...those are the couple I found. But I'm sure there's more out there.

 

[Dreadnought]

When I was in sixth grade (im in 7th now) we had to do a report about a country. Each part of the class was divided into groups and givin a continent. Then you would choose a country from that continent. I was Germany (yay!) so I brought in German chocolate (Mmm). But I did not use civ3

 

['Copter Pilot]

I was Germany (yay!) so I brought in German chocolate (Mmm). But I did not use civ3

I'm really glad that my home country was represented by chocolate (Milka?) and not the über-aggressive lunatic Civ-III-version of Otto von Bismarck.

 

[derenthal]

It would be neat if you could set up large, somewhat accurate maps for different time periods.

The only downside to LAN play would be that historical accuracy would go out the window if an aggressive player started conquering too many cities. You could end up with an alternate-reality.

 

[Turner]

Ah, but for "What If's" it would be nice. And I'm sure there are plenty of scenarios in the C&C section for just about any war....

 

[The Omega]

You could use the civicloedia for answers.

 

[Paradigne]

[QUOTE='Copter Pilot]I'm really glad that my home country was represented by chocolate (Milka?) and not the über-aggressive lunatic Civ-III-version of Otto von Bismarck.[/QUOTE]
I always thought Ludwig would have been a good choice, but, who would you like to see?

 

[Moonsinger]

Hello -
I'm guessing this is part of the regular 6th grade cirriculum (we're in California) and was wondering if anyone has used Civ3 as an aid to study how ancient civilizations may have developed. I'm thinking of having a LAN PTW set-up for the Faire, with large monitors so people can watch over the players' shoulders.

Bad idea! Why would you want those 6th graders to get hook on Civ3?

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

because i use to be but i'm now 7th

 

[punkbass2000]

Since this would be June 2005, Civ4 would be out.

I wouldn't count on it.

 

[DementedAvenger]

For me, the most educational part of Civ for me has been knowing city names. There is no other way anybody could get me to memorize the names of 20 Babylonian cities.

 

[crazyluke2001]

Lol, I don't think there were 20 Babylonian cities. a lot of the names I think come from present day towns in the Babylonian areas. Someone wanna check this for me? Me too lazy.

 

[Babbler]

I saw Civ3 being used a literacy program for school-age boys. The woman running the program said that dispite statistics, boys were literate, just in other areas.

 

[subbss]

My dada has seen me play Civilization so much and he is going to be a history teacher so he was thinking about using Civilization too. He actually has a textbook that suggests using Civilization (the first one) and SimCity as teaching tools. You woulkd have to be careful about acuracy and choose a scenario that has ciries in the right places and all that stuff that was mentioned above.

 

[sealman]

The Civ series has almost zero education content. And I doubt if any serious educator would accept the Civlopedia as a source on a paper on Ancient Egyptians.

 

[thetrooper]

The only thing I have ever learnt from CIV3 is that "War is hell".