This week, I have been playing a lot of Spore. Purely for educational reasons I can assure you 
OK, I’m playing it as a game geek – but I think there is some potential there for some use in the classroom.
A long time ago, I remember a colleague of mine using Sim Life in the classroom to introduce the idea of adaptation and survival. It wasn’t the most sophisticated game by todays standards, but was kinda fun.
Spore takes all this to a whole new level. The game itself has been sold as an “evolution game” but to be honest it’s not really evolution. The fact that you are in control of designing your creature through a lot of the game and can add and remove body parts at will makes it more “Intelligent Design in a Can”
I’m currently in the Space stage of the game, having taken my mini-cellular creature all the way into space. This stage is taking ages to play and there’s no way it could be done in the classroom.
The aspect of the game that could be useful in class could be the Creature Creator. You can download a standalone version of this for a £5 or a trial version of this for free.
The creature creator lets you design different animals which you can then put into your world. It would be good to ask pupils to design a herbivore – or the perfect carnivore. Design an animal for a hot climate or a cold climate etc. They could then take a screenshot, paste into a word processor/presentation tool and explain why they designed it the way they did. What features make it a good herbivore/carnivore etc.
In the meantime, here’s a little widget that shows you all my Spore creations.
I’ve been messing about trying to recreate the Starship Enterprise and an X-Wing fighter. Battlestar Galatica is more of a challenge Here’s my Spore profile page.
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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Enjoyed reading your post Danny. We’ve made lots of creatures using the Creature Creator (http://thedowns.edublogs.org/category/creature-creations/), and we’re also featured on http://www.sporevote.com, but our creatures were just for fun really!
Your idea about using it for habitat / adaptation work is really good… definitely something to try.
I’m loving Spore as well. I have it on my iPhone and on the DS. Not tried the PC or Mac version yet.
I think there is lots of potential here for use in the classroom – watch this space!
Ollie
Hi Danny,
Just found your blog today — looks great but cannot see some bits (eg spore) behind BucksGfL web filter — hope to have another look at home to find out what to unblock.
We have used the spore creature creator with year 6 children who are going to use their creations to make animated movies. Using the video capture button we have saved short sequences, adding voice overs in a movie editing package. We are now using the snapshot option in spore to investigate freeze frame animation to add to our stories. Hopefully our finished films will be uploaded to Teachertube later in the term.
Thanks Ian – that sounds like a great idea.
Please let me have a link to your movies when they make them. I’d love to see them.
I’m currently getting a little bogged down in the Space stage now. Getting a little repetitive to be honest.
We’re beginning to make our films now, the freeze frame stuff is going to be a challenge!! Here is an example of a short trailer of our films that Year 6 made to show in a school assembly. I suppose it could be a project in its own right with good links to speaking and listening.
http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1ad9c945bd38ee7ec929
Much more to come later in the term!