Gaming for Economics

Here's an interesting development. The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) has created an online course for introductory level economics. You're probably wondering, "So what? There's a gazillion online courses anyway on the net". Well, to make it interesting, the course is in the form of an online game, where the students play an alien race that crash landed on Earth. In the game, students have to make decisions to ensure the survival of the alien race. This is a very interesting way to introduce the basic concepts of the economics to students, such as opportunity cost.

To play the game you have to enroll in the course in the fall semester, which is open to those who are interested. Will this method of teaching catch on? We'll just have to wait and see. Besides, you don't really have to play this game to learn basics economics. If you're a game fanatic, playing games such as civillization IV or the now classic sim city, or any other strategy based game already taught you economics without you even realizing it.