Minecraft: a multidisciplinary approach to learning

Last Wednesday, I found myself at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, where I attended the 2024 HarperCollins Author Party.

It’s safe to say I felt like a bit of an imposter. But I was invited as one of this year's published authors (but not before a quick trip to TK Maxx to get something resembling a smart shirt).

As I shuffled about the inevitable awkward networking chats, I had to explain I'd written a series of Minecraft STEM books.

I then had to explain what Minecraft actually was - to an endless stream of book people who had “heard of it” or “didn’t really know what it was”. (And who mostly looked vacant as I tried to politely answer their questions).

“Is it like The SIMS?” one woman asked naively.

“It’s like World of Warcraft, right?” guessed another.?

I realised that many people don’t know exactly what Minecraft is (even if their kids play it) and have less idea how it is educational and related to STEM.

So I thought I would break down for you how Minecraft is a powerful educational tool and how you can use it at home and in school for positive purposes.

What is Minecraft?

Minecraft is an infinite 3D world where you have to mine for natural resources and craft them into items and tools. It’s basically a giant virtual sandbox with endless possibilities.

Sound like the real world? Yes, exactly. If you feel like your kids are disconnected from where things come from and how we use up the world’s resources, get them to play Minecraft.

How is Minecraft related to STEM?

On one level, the Minecraft STEM book series, aimed at 7-11 year-olds, explores different STEM areas, like Science, Technology, Engineering and Computing. The books go into different topics within these areas and teach the major concepts.

However, the real power lies in how STEM focuses less on individual areas of study, and more on a multidisciplinary approach to learning.

If the child builds an automatic wheat farm in Minecraft, they are connecting science, technology, engineering, and maths in building a working mechanism that simulates a real-world purpose.

Even if you don’t explicitly tackle a specific educational subject area in Minecraft, children will still be learning valuable STEM skills, like problem solving, making connections between subjects, creativity and (if they use multiplayer) collaboration.

Another way to say this is: Minecraft IS learning.

It is a way for children to exercise their innate intelligence (like most computer games).

Children are naturally curious, competitive and motivated by adventurous and imaginative activities. Minecraft exercises intelligence in a way that reading comprehensions and maths problems simply can’t. The learner is in a world, with agency, and has to make decisions about how to survive, manage resources, navigate, tinker with combining items, plan, design, refine, iterate - the list goes on.

And with the made-up material ‘redstone’ in the game (that behaves like a cross between electricity and mechanics) they’ll soon become little engineers, creating clever contraptions and secret door mechanisms, developing key transferable skills that will set them up for life.

So if you deny your child access to playing Minecraft because you fear the DREADED SCREEN, you are robbing them of the opportunity to exercise their natural curiosity and intelligence (and you're letting their friends get an intellectual and experiential advantage in life).

So parents, switch off Youtube kids and download Minecraft on any platform (it can basically run on a potato).?

And educators, get your students linked up with Minecraft Education (version for schools) and have them learning things they’ll never get close to learning from a textbook.

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Hi I'm Tom Bolton ?? a forward-thinking educator whose mission is to help teachers craft motivating learning experiences that prepare students for their digital future. ???? www.tomboltonedu.com