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OF3-10/29/02 8:25AM VIDEO GAMES THAT TEACH VALUABLE LESSONS

The Osgood File. Sponsored in part by Radio Shack. I'm Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network.

In an inner city neighborhood, teens are designing their own radically different video game.

SOT: BOGUILLA: "Most games out there is just go and kill this player or accomplish this and that but while you're playing this game you actually learn history.":06

The story after this for Radio Shack.

In Los Angeles' Echo Park, kids are learning art, design, computers and history as they create their own video games. Jessica Irish runs the after-school program.

SOT: IRISH: "People had to do the drawings, people had to do the photography to base the drawings on, do the animations, come up with the sounds and then to put it all together.":07

SOT: RODRIGUEZ: "I think this one is more different in the sense that we are learning history.":0

High School senior Irene Rodriguez and her classmates studied their own history to create the game.

SOT: "We are incorporating our past as Latinos or native Americans and everything. All the cultures are being incorporated into a game.":07

The kids based their game on a village massacre that took place in El Salvador in 1981, leaving just one survivor. The player becomes that survivor and the object is to gather evidence, travel and tell others what happened. Artist Juan Devis helped out.

SOT: "It's sort of turning every violent video game upside down where you just kill as many people as you want. Here is the other way around.":08

Student Luce Medrano.

SOT: "This game, the one we're doing here, is at the same time to entertain you but at the same time you're also learning about what happed in the past.":07

The game, called Tropical America, will be on C-D Rom and online at TropicalAmerica dot com. The students say they now know how to use programs like Flash animation that could help them get jobs later on.

SOT: BOULGOS: "When I tell people, yeah, you know, I worked with Flash they're like, oh my God, that is so hard. And you know, it feels good because people really admire you.":09

SOT: RODRIGUEZ: "It's amazing. I'm doing all this and I'm still in high school. It's a great advantage.":03

For more information about this broadcast, log on to http://www.acfnewsource.org

The Osgood File. Charles Osgood on the CBS Radio Network.

The Osgood File. October 29, 2002.