New Zealand: In case of emergency: Children map community using Lego and Minecraft

Source(s): Radio New Zealand International

By Charlie Dreaver

Year five and six students at Maraekakaho School in the Hawkes Bay region, have been using the computer game Minecraft, and Lego bricks, to map their community.

Researchers from the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology and East Coast LAB came up with the idea to teach children about local hazards and what resources could be useful in an emergency.

[...]

"The idea of children being vulnerable is a very common notion, but they hold valuable knowledge of their environment and they have the capacity to conduct risk assessment and participate in the planning and preventing disaster," [researcher Nickola Loodin] said.

She said the Minecraft and Lego maps are interactive ways for the children to express their ideas through active playing.

"When they were building the map you could really see they were so engaged and really took ownership of the process themselves," she said.

[...]

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