Health Beats and Inner Explorers are a series of educational computer programs that teach children facts about health. The Inner Explorers is an interactive movie that explores the body in an “Incredible Journey” manner through the expedient of having a group of kids shrunk and swallowed by a friend. Health Beats offers facts, games and activities about various health issues, such as body parts, emotions, growth and other areas.
Inner Explorers presents an animated movie, broken down into eighteen chapters. There is some interactivity involved, but of a minimal sort designed to move the movie action along. The characters are amusing, and the story presents the science material in a clear, informative way that entertains at the same time. The information can also be printed out. Facts about the inner body are also presented in little “factoids” known as health beats.
Health Beats is more on the lines of traditional educational software in that it teaches its material through facts, games, activities and short movies. Topics such as Body Parts, Aches & Pains, Feelings & Worries, Growing & Developing and Keeping Healthy are covered. The games are question-and-answer or simple arcade style games, and the activities are quizzes, mostly with drag-and-drop answers for insertion into drawings. Facts are learned through written and animated text and movies.
These programs are very well designed, educational programs that do an excellent job of teaching health to kids. Health Beats offers more material and content, and also presents kids with more to do, especially the Body Parts program. The animation is great, and the characters are very detailed, hip pubescent teens. The presentation is simple, but not dumbed down – there is quite a bit of information covered!
Educators will enjoy these programs, but may have enjoyed them somewhat better if Youthealth had included their Teacher Resouces in the programs, instead of requiring teachers to purchase a resource CD separately for each program, which costs an additional $30 per program.
This is inexcusable, and teachers should complain to the company. There is no reason why these tools should not have been included for the price of the program itself.
Still, the programs are great teaching tools, and educators in the elementary grades will definitely want to check these out for their classroom needs.
Gameplay: 7
The games are all very easy to to get into, and the menus are simple to navigate. The animations are cool to watch, and the text information is easy to read and understand. Kids will enjoy learning with these programs, but won’t keep returning, as the material presented is very specific.
Graphics: 8
Incredible graphics!
Sound: 6
The sound is very minimal.
Difficulty: Easy
The programs are all easy to play and the material is easy to learn.
Concept: 8
These science facts are presented in a well-thought out manner, in that the information is clear and educational, but with enough kid flavor to keep them interested.
Multiplayer: No
Overall: 7.5
These programs are well-designed, educational products that teachers will appreciate. Inner Explorers is more of a video, than a game, an in my opinion isn’t quite as good as the Health Beats programs. Except for the lack of the teacher resources (which have to be purchased separately), these are great for classroom use.
