Move over, Disneyland—life isn’t always magical. CNN investigates Micropolix, a new theme park in Madrid, Spain, that teaches kids about the economy and the importance of money by making them work for their fun—literally.
Dubbed as a mini-metropolis, the theme park is designed to be like a smaller version of an actual city, where the children must earn money in order to pay for any activities they want to participate in during their visit.
Upon arriving at the theme park, the kids must first go to the bank and wait in a line to get a tiny bit of “start-up” play money to get them going. However, if they run out or they want more cash, they have to go to the employment offices to get a job—including everything from gas station attendants to models in a fashion show—which will trade manual labour for a paycheck. With this paycheck, they are able to pay for driving lessons—through a simulated video game—their licence, their car insurance, and gas, among many other things.
No thanks, I’ll stick with Disneyland. [CNN - Thanks Helen!]
Jeff
Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 4:52 PMToo bad this theme park does not have mortgage lenders, real estate appraisers, credit rating agencies and large banks who screw around the system and cause all the kids in the theme park to be unemployed. Sorry, there is no exit of the theme park; unless you try to kill yourself.
Javier Carballo
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 4:11 AMI think it is really not a bad thing that Micropolix does not have mortgage lenders, real estate appraisers, credit rating agencies and large banks screwing you around…. just let us kids have a good time before they grow-up…