Plants vs. Zombies 2 invades schools as educational tool

GlassLab has teamed up with PopCap and researchers at Florida State University to develop an educational version of free-to-play game Plants vs. Zombies 2.

Called Use Your Brainz Edu, the title is designed for math students ages 11 to 18. The game is described as similar to the main version, but is able to gather data on a child’s problem solving skills thanks to its analytics engine, that can then be assessed by a teacher to record their progress.

Teachers who use the game in the classroom will also receive lesson plans to help develop problem solving strategies. Educators will also have access to an online teacher dashboard providing them with real-time reports on in-game accomplishments.

Use Your Brainz Edu is currently available on the App Store in North America.

“Teachers everywhere have come to understand the amazing power that games have to engage students and adopt them for use in the classroom,” said GlassLab executive director Jessica Lindl.

“It’s up to us to provide games that are not just gripping, but that truly unlock the learning inherent in these games and make it easy for teachers to apply to their lesson plans the skills they teach. Use Your Brainz represents the best of both worlds – a game that kids already love that is a best-in-class tool for teaching problem solving.”

GlassLab is a US developer based at EA’s HQ, and is sponsored by EA, the Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the ESA and several other education-focused organisations.

Previously it developed an educational version of SimCity, SimCityEdu.