I haven’t been keeping track of this contest but I do recall posting about it…I believe back in January.  Well, the winners have been chosen and 3 of the winners used Spore Galactic Adventures for their projects.  MaxisCactus has more with the following press announcement:

Game Changers Winners Announced!

NINE GAME DEVELOPERS TO SHARE $250,000 FOR EDUCATIONAL GAMING EXPERIENCES USING LittleBigPlanet™ and Spore Galactic Adventures

May 24, 2010 (Games for Change Conference, New York City) U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, will announce on Tuesday the nine winning game developers who will share $250,000 for new and educational gaming experiences on the commercial games LittleBigPlanet™ and Spore™ Galactic Adventures. These winners are part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Competition, which is designed to support the most novel uses of new media for learning. This year, MacArthur teamed with Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), Electronic Arts (EA), the Entertainment Software Association, and the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation to support new and creative user-generated levels and adventures to engage young people in learning in the two games. The intention of the competition is to promote “participatory” learning, which operates under the notion that individuals, specifically young ones, learn best through sharing and involvement. The competition is administered by the virtual network of learning institutions, HASTAC, and is part of the Obama Administration’s Educate to Innovate initiative. More information at www.dmlcompetition.net.

The three winning Spore™ Galactic Adventures projects include:

Creatures Classified! An exploration of cataloging creatures across the galaxy, $40,000
Mathew Powers, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN
Best in Class: Creatures (Spore™ only)
In this Spore™ adventure, fifth and sixth graders, acting as “intergalactic speciologists,” learn how to collect and organize scientific data and employ the scientific method to classify living things. Armed with a science field journal, players must navigate progressively more complex and challenging planets, collecting data, and classifying the myriad species they encounter based on the evolutionary and physical characteristics of the creatures.

DIASTEM: Digitally Integrating the Academics of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, $15,000
Patrick Keller, Albuquerque, NM
Leveraging Spore’s™ powerful ability to personalize gameplay, DIASTEM targets STEM-related content that applies directly to digital game development. Within the Spore™ interface, players will complete challenges—from simple math and logic puzzles to more complex physics and engineering construction projects—that are specifically developed and created to elicit player understanding of game design theory and application.

Mission: Evolution, $15,000
Jennifer Biedler, Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg, VA
In Mission: Evolution, high school students thoroughly analyze the evolutionary science driving the Spore™ game engine and investigate the scientific accuracy of the game. Working together to identify principles of evolutionary change that are absent from the off-the-shelf version of Spore™, students collaborate to introduce these principles into their own missions in Spore™ Galactic Adventures.