KAT's World

http://kats.roycastle.org/go_games.htm There are a lot of games offered on the Kid’s Against Tobacco (KAT) website. I played “Kat’s world” and checked out the beginning of a couple of the other games from this website. They are all anti-smoking games that teach the player about the negatives to smoking cigarettes. I think these games are very important for students in elementary school because we need to start early when teaching our children about the dangers of smoking. In PE, I spend a lot of time discussing healthy habits and lifestyles with my students. One of the topics during those units includes anti-smoking where I focus mainly on showing them how it affects their lungs and heart. I think that games like “Kat’s world” would really help reinforce what we are learning in PE and I will encourage my students to play it. I had a little difficulty playing these games because they were created in a format that does not fit my computer very well. The screen was extremely wide but very narrow as well so the images and writing were all skewed. I’m not sure if it was just my computer though, so I would ask my students to check it out on their home computers to see if it works better at home. What I liked best about Kat’s world was that I could see the player having a lot of fun with it. The screen was very colorful and aesthetically pleasing. Kat is an alien visiting a foreign planet where they are all addicted to cigarettes. The challenge was really fun where you have to answer questions about smoking correctly to save the foreign planet and convince them to stop smoking. At the end of the game, the player gets to create a happy, healthy planet for them once they have saved the planet. I can see my students having a lot of fun designing the new planet and feeling really good about themselves for saving the aliens from cigarettes. Hooray! (The Kids Against Tobacco Smoke is a part of the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation in the United Kingdom. You can access their website at www.roycastle.org)