Arianna's Nutrition Expedition
© 2005 MMS Education
Created for the National Dairy Council, this is a set of four crudely designed food grouping games that come on one CD-ROM. In "Nutrition Mixer", children can create musical tracks by classifying the food groups. "Quintricious" puts the sorting process in a chemistry lab setting. "Combo Kitchen" introduces the idea that some food items, such as hamburgers, can contain different food groups. We liked how grids are used to help children sort the food elements; although the music can become repetitious. "Food Force One" is a bit like "Carmen Sandiego" where players are asked to travel the world in search of combination food items. While some good interactive techniques are used, the game is heavy on dialog and light on things to do. Testers complained that some of the icons are hard to discern (e.g., it is hard to tell if one fruit is a peach or a melon). Also, it is hard to exit from some of the games. Note: The fourth activity on the disk-- "Food Force One" should not be confused with "Food-Force," released last year by the United Nations World Food Program.
Windows XP
Teaches: health, nutrition, the food groups
CTR Rating: 60%