I actually started laughing when I first read the press release for this – First Dr. Seuss gave us Whoville (and don’t forget the The Lorax!) now someone else has given us Whyville!  Whyville is geared for kids but adults can play and learn too.  It’s a big virtual world that teaches kids about social, environmental, and political issues affecting their communities:

A big focus of Whyville is global warming and the virtual world includes a tie-in with Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth. Whyville’s virtual citizens get to actually experience climate-related crises and consequences, such as virtual tropical storms which recently struck Whyville bringing lots of wind, rain and debris. In response, Whyville “citizens” joined together in a massive clean up effort to restore their environment. After the storm hit, concerned citizens started flocking to the newly created Whyville Climate Center (WCC) to learn about how CO2 levels affect climate change.  At the WCC, citizens will soon be able to travel back in time to see how major events — like the opening of the Whyville virtual airport — affected Whyville’s atmosphere.  Each citizen will also be given their own carbon footprint calculator, which lets them see how their decisions in the virtual world affect their contribution to the CO2 levels.

A really fun feature is that kids can come up with their own identity.  This is me as a Whyvillan!

What I like best about Whyville is that kids must first get their parents permission to chat and also pass a chat license test.  What this does is test kids knowledge on what is proper chat etiquette so hopefully no pervs disguised as kids can get the little “whyvillans” to give out personal information!

Since most kids today are way more tech-savvy than we were at their age I encourage all parents to introduce them to Whyville so they can be eco-savvy as well!