New Minecraft games helps kids understand the impact of flooding and teaches about climate change.
A collaboration between Minecraft, the Environment Agency and BlockBuilders has seen the development and launch of Rivercraft – a new world in Minecraft: Education Edition.
The game shows the destructive impact flooding can have and teaches environmental skills, the mechanics of flooding and flood protection, project management team work, engineering concepts, communication and failure as one of the greatest ways we learn is when things don’t go as planned. Rivercraft allows mistakes to be made in a safe environment.
There are three distinctive games within the Rivercraft world – Managing Flooding, Flood Prevention and Our Local Environment.
The Managing Flooding games asks players to build flood defenses, flood storage areas and flood gates then flood the area to visualise the pro’s and con’s of each approach and their sustainability within a community.
The Flood Prevention game allow players to explore how individual actions can alleviate Climate Change and how understanding flood risk can reduce damage to people and property.
Our Local Area asks players to conduct an ecological survey – spot and record wildlife species including water voles and otters.
The journey from playing to learning is something Minecraft excels at. The new world helps the Environment Agency engage with the public on how flooding and costal erosion is managed in the context of climate change. It helps young people understand what is actually going on and their part in it.
The game became available on 4th April 2022 across the world.
More information regarding the governments response can be found at: Rivercraft: Minecraft game inspires young environmental champions – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The game can be viewed at: RiverCraft | Minecraft Education Edition
