Can a Caveman Teach Kids to be Healthier?

Can a caveman teach kids better eating and exercise habits?

The team at Florida Virtual School is betting he can. They’ve defrosted Cave Bro as part of an entertaining new game concept designed to teach kids how to make better nutritional choices. Cave Bro has been frozen for more than 30,000 years, so needless to say he’s hungry and will eat anything. It’s up to players to decide what he eats, how much, and how often. Good choices win. Bad choices create one really cranky caveman.

The concept originated as part of the new Health and PE course development, but after working with Fablevision to develop a playable prototype and testing it with kids, the team quickly realized this amusing game could teach good nutrition and exercise habits in ways teachers and parents never could.

So the team turned to the crowdfunding community on Kickstarter to help launch Cave Bro into a fully functional mobile game available to anyone on the app store.

When education budgets come up short, public schools are turning to crowdfunding for special projects like Cave Bro. The FLVS team chose Kickstarter for its crowd of active gamers, but also has plans to launch future projects on the teacher-friendly DonorsChoose.org. Both platforms allow individual donors to contribute small amounts, which can add up to big dollars and big impacts on education. Will it replace the funding gap in our public schools? Who knows, but if you want to make your own small contribution toward improving education, join the crowd.

See all the details on the FLVS Cave Bro Kickstarter campaign here. The Cave Bro Kickstarter campaign will be open until May 2, 2014.

Post by John Logan, Former Vice President of Curriculum Innovation for FLVS