Earth sciences instructor creates Minecraft-inspired rock game | 24CA News
A Laurentian University geoscience teacher has created a brand new sport impressed by the favored online game Minecraft.
Tobias Roth likes to have a hands-on strategy to educating, so he designed the Minecraft-inspired Rock Identification Game, to do precisely what its title suggests.
Players can deal with completely different minerals – all obtainable in Minecraft – and need to establish them. If gamers are stumped, there are some playing cards with clues to assist them alongside.
“Many kids nowadays have played Minecraft,” Roth mentioned.
“They know how to make tools in Minecraft to make them survive. And we do that in society, right? We actually mine minerals to make things that we need in our daily lives.”
Roth mentioned he got here up with the thought for the sport when he was out for a hike with some youngsters to show them about geology.
“They wanted to really discover iron ore, so I showed them a little bit what iron would look like in a rock,” he mentioned.
Because the kids had all performed Minecraft, additionally they needed to smelt the ore and make issues with it, like they’d within the sport.
Roth knew he had a captive viewers after which began engaged on his sport to encourage future geologists.
“Many careers are actually dealing with rocks and minerals and we want to encourage students to become a geologist because it is a very good career path where you earn while you learn, you pay for the tuition by your summer jobs,” he mentioned.
And now Laurentian’s Harquail School of Earth Sciences has partnered with the Greater Sudbury Public Library to make the sport obtainable at every of its 13 areas.
People can borrow the sport at branches of the Greater Sudbury Public Library and play it there. They cannot take it house as a result of Roth mentioned some minerals within the sport are fairly uncommon.
“The Greater Sudbury area is defined by rich mineral deposits so this partnership is a great way to provide an educational resource about the rocks under our feet,” mentioned Chantal MacRae, the Greater Sudbury Public Library’s baby and youth programmer, in a press launch.
Roth mentioned he now plans to make a second version of the sport with completely different rocks and minerals.
