Numedeon's Whyville, a virtual world for kids, has gained some attention with its success over the past year. Now the San Antonio Express-News is reporting that founder and Chief Executive Jim Bower is leveraging his professorship in computational biology at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to help Whyville teach kids about life and science.

According to the Expresss News, the Texas Workforce Commission recently granted Whyville with over $440,000 to build a Whyville Biotech and a Whyville Advanced Manufacturing Center to educate young users in those areas -- kids will work to develop vaccines to the in-world virus WhyPox at the biotech center as they learn about world disease control and prevention, drug design and discovery, and new techniques in computational biology.

"From a work-force standpoint, this is huge," Bower told the Express-News. "We have a 'cool' factor, but we're also doing something very useful for these industries.

In addition to science, Whyville residents are also learning fiscal responsibility. Through a partnership with Toyota to sell Scions to teens and 'tweens in Whyville, kids learn about lending and financial services as they must earn enough in-world "clams" to make the payments on time, and a Whyville Toyota engineering facility teaches kids about advanced design.

"This activity is intended to teach kids how to manage credit and be responsible," Bower told the Express-News. "Every kid in Whyville has a credit score. Better to understand how that works now with clams than figure it out with real money when they grow up."

[Via San Antonio Express-News]