Near and far: engaging students with place through Minecraft

ABSTRACTMinecraft is an extremely popular computer game and educational tool. It provides various place-based facilities, with schools, towns and islands recreated, and geology and archaeology made available to explore in-game. In this ‘Spotlight On … ’ article we offer a synopsis of some of the existing resources created using this package. We also look at how Minecraft is used to engage with real-world places and features. AcknowledgementsSince 2015 Science Hunters has received funding from multiple sources that have been acknowledged in relevant outputs. Hazard mitigation sessions and the production of this article formed part of the Science Hunters project ‘Building to Break Barriers’, which was supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Ingenious awards scheme.Notes1 Mojang Studios created the original Minecraft game. In 2014, Mojang and its associated Minecraft intellectual property, including Minecraft Education (ME), were purchased by Microsoft.