Minecraft can be a powerful educational tool because of its familiarity to young audiences and it’s versatility in modelling real world scenarios. The following are just some ideas of how you might use Minecraft as part of your delivery on the Operation Earth topics.
Science Hunters is an outreach project that engages children of all ages with science using the popular computer game Minecraft. They learn about scientific concepts and university research and try out some hands-on demonstrations before building their own related creations in the game. Some of the topics covered include volcanology, food security, ecology and conservation, plants and pollinators, parasites, bioluminescence, coral reef ecology and renewable energy.
The team can be contacted by email at: sciencehunters@lancaster.ac.uk
There’s a report about this inclusive way of working online at: https://jcom.sissa.it/sites/default/files/documents/JCOM_1802_2019_N01.pdf
Dr Tom August at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster (CEH) has developed Minecraft worlds that are exact scale models of regions of the UK using high resolution satellite data. These have been developed to communicate stories about our changing landscapes to younger audiences. VR brings these to life and they can be used as a starting point for conversations about how society impacts the world around us, and the wildlife that lives there.
There’s a video introduction to this work at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCT91Xa6JI
Students can use their knowledge of ecosystems in conjunction with Minecraft tools to create their own world.
Link: https://education.minecraft.net/lessons/know-your-ecosystem/
