Whyville
educational Internet site
Whyville is an educational Internet site geared towards children aged 8–14, founded and managed by Numedeon Inc. Whyville engages its uses in learning about a broad range of topics, including science, business, art and geography. Whyville's users (Whyvillians) engage in virtual world simulation based games and role play sponsored by a wide range of governmental, non-profit, and corporate entities. In 2009, the website had a registered base of more than 7 million users.
Whyville was launched in 1999, by Numedeon Inc, which was founded by Dr. James M. Bower, his students, and collaborators at the California Institute of Technology. They were interested in whether simulation-based serious gaming could change education, and Whyville's purpose remains primarily educational.
Whyville's interactive structure
Whyville was one of the first virtual worlds built around learning games. Whyville was also one of the first virtual worlds which used an internal virtual currency. Users earn a 'clam' salary based on their educational activities on the site.
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This entry incorporates text from “Whyville” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.