Can video games help save the world?

Here is a reason to think they can.

And another.

Here is a way video game developers and our government are collaborating to fight childhood obesity and encourage healthy eating habits.

A January 2010 Time article on the subject.

In her TED Talk videogame developer Jane McGonigal explains how to we can achieve a better future through gaming.

At the 2010 Triangle Games Conference, another videogame developer Juan Benito talks about his game Six Days in Fellujah, based on personal experiences of soldiers. Using videogames to tell contemporary stories, Benito suggests that videogames can inform and increase young people's participation in politics.

Here is another example of videogame storytelling. Like Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, this short juxtaposes human actors in a videogame world, a desolate zombie-filled city some may recognize from the smash-hit Left 4 Dead.

Lastly, if you thought that no respectable school would use popular videogames in its curriculum, then think again. In its online course IDS2935, “21st Century Skills in StarCraft.”honors students at the University of Florida learn critical thinking skills by playing the computer game Starcraft.

Such a class is not unique to the University of Florida. See here for an article discussing the use of this method of teaching to spur creative thinking at a number of schools.