Minecraft – Gaming for Education

16. Mar
Activities

Minecraft – Gaming for education

Minecraft. It’s all the rage.

From the outside, it might look like just another screen-attention-grabbing computer game.

But there’s more to Minecraft than that…

The game is heralded as developing skills such as problem-solving, creativity, and collaborative processes.

According to Engineering for Kids, in 2020, around 131 million people logged onto Minecraft to play every month!

Minecraft achieves this by delivering an experiential learning experience in a ‘blocky’ 3D virtual world.

According to the Primary + STEM team’s latest report on STEM education, which you can download a copy of here, “Hands-on, experiential learning that is connected to real-world issues may garner the most interest and engagement from girls.” Which signals a big thumbs up for the educational benefits of learning through gameplay, such as can be achieved with Minecraft, and moving towards closing the STEM gender gap.

The team at Primary + STEM have identified an activity to help children learn about Minecraft and develop their digital skills.

The activity is called Artificial Intelligence Minecraft Agent Village Experience and it forms part of the Primary + STEM team’s curated selection of Teaching Resources which have been mapped to the Victorian education curriculum.

You can find over a hundred STEM activities on the Primary + STEM website.

An activity to do at home

Activity: Artificial Intelligence Minecraft Agent Village Experience

The activity is pitched at beginners, although those who are more experienced with Minecraft should equally enjoy the activity.

The activity includes 8 mini-quests for children to complete.

The quests range from introductory tasks of learning how to open doors, to analysing the environment, and then advancing to developing skills to help children complete a bio-rejuvenation project to restore a village.

Projects such as this, which link inquiry-led learning and problem solving, were identified in the Primary + STEM report (p. 13) to “contribute to building important capabilities in the Victoria curriculum such as using scientific inquiry, critical thinking and problem-solving.”

One of the other benefits of the Artificial Intelligence Minecraft Agent Village Experience is that it integrates education of climate change, and encourages brainstorming on solutions to save the planet (well, a fictitious planet in the game… but it’s a good start for building minds to tackle global issues of the future!).

A further bonus is that the issues explored in the game are linked to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). According to their website, working towards the SDGs “provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future”. You can learn more about the SDGs here.

In the activity, themes of biodiversity, land degradation, and fires are introduced through the premise of the game: to protect a village and save a forest, while learning about AI (artificial intelligence) in the process.

You’ll need to download the Minecraft Education Edition app, if you haven’t already done so.

After you’ve logged on, you’ll be guided through eight different quests which will help build a foundation in coding.

To learn more, you can watch a short video introducing the activity.

To access the activity, visit the resource webpage.

Info for teachers

In the Artificial Intelligence Minecraft Agent Village Experience, students learn the basics of coding by exploring a real-world example of artificial intelligence. The resource uses the context of a village that is threatened by fire.

Students need to code a solution, by programming the Minecraft Agent to navigate the forest and collect data. This data will help the Agent predict where fires will occur.

Students then code the Agent to help prevent the spread of fire, save the village, and bring life back into the forest.

This activity has been mapped to the Victorian curriculum:

  • Learning area: F-10: Digital Technologies
  • Curriculum code: Digital Technologies > Levels 3 and 4 > Data and Information > VCDTDI021

Additional Resources

Image credit

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