No, really.

Fair View Junior School, in Gillingham, Kent, teamed up with the makers of Sim City, which lets users play around with computer-generated cities.

A special Medway version was created to include recognisable local landmarks.

Children use the game to learn about environmental and transport issues while redesigning their home town.

The education-by-computer-game is part of a Medway Children’s University course called Design A Town.

The four-day courses have been run at Medway schools since 1998. BBC

I’ve always loved the Sim City games (ever since I was little and had to go round a friends house to play because we didn’t have a copy) Every aspect from terraforming to laying out nice little strips of land to watching the little cars whizzing about. And it’s highly addictive because stuff always goes wrong. The fire station catches fire, the nuclear power plant blows up, people complain about you putting up taxes to build the schools that they’re complaining they don’t have (there’s a political lesson there… take heed) … and then just when you think you’ve got is sorted, aliens land and start zapping things.

While I there’s a great deal of value in teaching children about city planning/government/attack-by-aliens (yes children, if you want a National Health/Education Service, you’re going to need some money from somewhere) I have to say I’m not wholly sure where the value in a special version showing local landmarks is. Beyond the initial “I can see my house from here” gimmickry, surely the class is just going to elect to put a sewage plant on top of the headteacher’s house…