“Road to Sustain”: Learning about biodiversity through Minecraft Educational games

“Road to Sustain”: Learning about biodiversity through Minecraft Educational games

Reported by Dr. Jinying Xu, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge and Cambridge Zero Darwin College David MacKay Research Associate

On 23 March, Cambridge Zero Darwin College David MacKay Research Associate Dr. Jinying Xu organised a Cambridge Festival event at the Department of Engineering as part of the family weekend.

The event, entitled “Road to Sustain”, provided a series of Minecraft Education games designed to help kids and young adults to explore how biodiversity is protected by ecologists in sustainable road infrastructure development projects. More than 50 kids came along with their families and participated in this educational and entertaining gaming event.

There were three different games provided in parallel, each with a version for children younger than 11 years or older than 11 years, while considering their Minecraft gaming experiences. Six instructors were recruited and trained in advance to guide participants through the game. They started by introducing the background, learning objectives, guiding ideas and questions, and performance expectations, followed by explaining the lesson structure and providing guidance for the game. Under the supervision and guidance of an instructor, a participating child would start the game, explore, find animals, plants, and fungi in a specific project setting as well as learning about wildlife species.

The aim was to create a workbook with photos and notes of the wildlife they found in the game. In some games, they were asked to build a new habitat for the animals, in others, they needed to create a biodiverse area, before finishing the road construction project. Participants also had the opportunity to learn about different professionals involved in the project, such as ecologists, biodiversity officers, plant operators, traffic officers and site engineers. Finally, the participants were asked to take a quiz on the knowledge they gained from the games and were given animal stickers as prizes.

The event has received much interest from children and adults alike, with 6 gaming stations running in parallel, and a total of 55 participants playing the game. Children said that they found it very interesting and helpful. Some said they wanted to become ecologists in the future, others wanted to be an engineer, while some were more interested the technology part of the game.

The event also raised the attention from some parents, who discussed the benefits of this new education format that embeds science and engineering knowledge in educational video games.

Interested readers can also access the games developed by National Highways through https://www.blockbuilders.co.uk/national-highways.