Habitat Heroes Saving the Planet One Game At A Time – Review

Ponn Sabra | August 29, 2009 | Comments (0)

Habitat Heroes – Saving the Planet One Game at a Time

Get your little ones into environmental conservation and learning about new cultures! Kids can travel the globe, learn more about environmental causes and new cultures by using their imagination and the click of the mouse. HabitatHeroes.com, the first online social networking site for young eco-warriors includes games that teach children about endangered species, the environment, healthy eating, and cultures around the world.

The ideal age group is 5 – 8 years old as tested by our daughters ages 9, 8 and 6 years old and discussed with other moms.

Registration is free.
When you login, you pick the Server to get to all the games. The first one is “Earth”. After nearly 2 weeks, the girls are still in “Earth”, and the below reviews are based on their experience thus far.
When you play a game, you earn CC (Creature Cash) which is money you can use to buy food, clothes, and furniture.
Every day there raffles in which a certain amount of CC is deposited into your account.
After you completed a full game, you can also win furniture and clothes which is similar to WebKinz.com, but you don’t need a code to get in, and the idea of Habitat Heroes is to learn while you play.

Please note: our daughters are world-travelers who have been homeschooled since birth. By visiting 2nd an 3rd world countries, their first-hand experience with water and food conservation, knowledge of animal rights and their existence, and exposure to multiple cultures, languages, clothing, religions, etc. is not typical to other American children aged 6, 8 and 9 year-old. The girls said that they learned about all the endangered animals taught on this site simply by visiting museums and previous internet research available for free. Our girls on the mission to find “Fun Facts” that they do not know…and haven’t found any yet. Please read their reviews with this in mind.

Over all, our 6 and 8 year old daughters enjoy playing the games immensely, and ask to play them often. The colors, characters and sound effects are awesome.

Habitat Heroes Review from our 6 year old:

The games I like best are:

“The Bully”. He runs around the school and turns on the lights, runs the water in the bathroom, and turns on the computers. The goal is to turn everything back off.
“School” has three kids (one little kid who’s about 4 years old, and two older kids about 6 years old). They make a tube from a water pump in school. Some local gardeners who wait at the end of the tube to fill their buckles so they can water their garden.
There’s a gardening game that I get to plant peppers, onions, pumpkins and tomatoes which I like to play. I have to water the plants not too much and not too little or else they’ll die.
While the games are fun, I already knew about the lessons taught in these three games.

Habitat Heroes Review from our 8 year old:

I like the “Rhino Attack” game in India because I can help the rhinos from the people who try to take away their horns. I am a “truck”, and then I “net” (catch) the bad people. I already knew that people use the rhinos’ horns to make swords.
In China, there’s a place where you type in your birthday, and they tell you which animal you are. I didn’t know which animal I was, so this was a fun activity.
I like “School” too, because I like to help people with their gardens and I love taking care of my gardens. It’s fun putting the tubes together. Once you put the tubes together right, they share you a a new fact; such as how much water Americans use. Although its a cool feature, I already knew all the facts they share about water.
I like the game called “Shanti’s Sari Salon” in India because it is a dress up game. I like dressing up the girls, teens and women; then, picking where they will go.

We’re wondering if one of the optional backgrounds is a masjid (mosque), because the building has a moon and a star on top of it. Since there are masjids and Muslims in India, we believe it is one. While Muslim Indian women also wear Sari dresses, they cover their stomachs and arms completely; whereas the non-Muslims show their tummies and wear short sleeves. Therefore, we recommend that either the selection of clothes are expanded to be appropriate for the background they choose, or the background should be eliminated or adjusted without the moon/star symbol. We recommend this because we should not mislead, misguide anyone, especially children, about global cultures.

Habitat Heroes Review from our 9 year old:

I think the games are very easy and the lessons learned are for much younger children.
Recommendation: Since some kids may just want to gain as many CCs as possible to buy more things, he/she may click around the website just to find CCs, without reading the important “Fun Fact” along with it. To get the most educational value from this site, parents should make sure that their children are reading and understanding each “Fun Facts” that is associated with the newly found CCs.

A special thank you to RoleMommy for introducing this site to us, and DKC for their marketing assistance.