Is This Food 2.0? Virtual World Gets Kids into the Garden and Kitchen

Virtual worlds are all the rage these days, and creative minds at KidsCom, a website full of online games for kids, are taking advantage of them to teach children about healthy living.

The newest game - the Idea Seekers Garden game - simulates having a backyard garden, so kids can grow virtual plants in real life time, harvest them, "cook" them using recipes from the game. They can then serve the meal, inviting their friends over for a party and literally dancing and playing games after their virtual garden is harvested.

Jori Clarke, CEO of Circle One Network which created KidsCom in an interview explaining the game and its benefits:

The hope is that if kids can get excited about growing healthy food and cooking meals at home, then they'll keep those healthy habits into adulthood. We've seen from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution that savvy eating habits both at home and at school are terribly lacking among today's families. But the lessons learned online need to be translated into the real world for them to do any good, so getting the game into classrooms is an important step. KidsCom is working on how to get teachers to create lesson plans around it, supplementing what kids learn from the school garden outside.

"We are exited about the new opportunities to use virtual gardening as a way to connect kids to real gardens, like the Michigan 4-H Children's Gardens and school gardens and to connect them directly to their food" says Dr. Norm Lownds, Curator of the 4-H Children's Gardens. "This unique combination of virtual and real experiences will empower kids to ask questions and to direct their own learning. We are convinced that the combination of virtual gardens, real gardens, experts, kids, teachers and parents can be a model for integrating informal and formal learning both inside and outside the classroom. It is 21st century education!"

Creating a learning environment that kids can relate to is vital for getting them to latch on to important lessons like how to eat. In their virtual garden, children have a chance to learn what their fruits and vegetables look like as they're growing - which can be wildly different from what they see in the stores. It's a chance for kids to learn that carrots and peanuts grow underground, that brussels sprouts grow on tall stalks, or that lettuce comes in many different vibrant colors. These kinds of facts can make them so much more interested in where their food comes from (is it local or from another country?), how it is raised (were there pesticides used?), local foods (when is broccoli in season?) and the great variety of things to eat (there are how many types of tomatoes?!). That sort of exploration is important for healthy living both for people and the environment.

KidsCom has been hard at work putting together games that teach kids about real world situations that aren't exactly tangible. For instance, they've put out a game called "Green Your House" that allows kids to decorate their own virtual room, and as they select furniture and accessories, they learn about the carbon and water footprints of different items and environmental impact of their choices. They aren't typically provided with this kind of information when they walk into Target with their parents and pick out a new rug for their real room (unless they're using some of the handy iPhone apps like GoodGuide, though odds of that are slim), so the online game provides the perfect platform for kids to understand what their actual impact on the planet is when they make decisions in daily life.

Farmville is wildly popular on Facebook, and we're suspecting that KidsCom and their virtual garden can be equally as exciting for kids, as well as educational.