Sophie Bentley

It is hugely important that we find and develop effective ways to encourage young people to engage with science1 – children’s interests in science tend to decline from 10 years of age2 and are usually established by 14 years3. This can be mitigated by engaging children in practical, investigative, activities associated with science4; computer games, being played by 69% of 6–10 year olds and 81% of 11–14 year olds in the UK5, provide a way to do this.

Minecraft is both an extremely popular game and ideal for communicating concepts, as it contains a range of features which relate to real-world processes and environments and can be used to engage children with various topics.[1],[2],[3] It is a construction-based game which allows players to build a huge range of structures and items with a variety of blocks of different properties and textures.