Book chapter
Teaching Earth Science with Minecraft
Teaching Pioneers: Visions from the Edge of the Map, pp.175-192
ETC Press
2016
Abstract
Minecraft is a video game extremely popular with children and teenagers. It is an open sandbox game that allows players the freedom to create anything they can imagine (see Figure 1). So far, more than 21.5 million people have bought the desktop version of the game.1 I aimed to tap into the popularity and unique style of Minecraft to engage high school students in a series of lessons about earth science. Minecraft is a perfect fit for the Earth Science topic in the Australian Curriculum for Year 8, which covers rocks and the rock cycle. My two Year 8 classes used Minecraft alongside traditional teaching techniques to learn about earth science. The students were surveyed before and after the program on their attitude, motivation, and engagement toward earth science. I want to share my story with you to encourage you to see video games as a medium through which meaningful learning can occur. I hope this will also inspire other teachers to create engaging, transformational classroom experiences using video games.
Details
- Title
- Teaching Earth Science with Minecraft
- Authors/Creators
- Megan Pusey - Murdoch University, School of Information Technology
- Contributors
- Caro Williams-Pierce (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Teaching Pioneers: Visions from the Edge of the Map, pp.175-192
- Publisher
- ETC Press
- Identifiers
- 991005882551407891
- Copyright
- © by Caro Williams-Pierce (Ed.), et al.
- Murdoch Affiliation
- School of Information Technology
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
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