Craft your Future

In July 2016, the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) launched a construction game that takes place in Minecraft.

'Craft your Future' is aimed at introducing 12-14 year olds to a career in construction. By helping them explore the required methods and skills, it is hoped that they will feel inspired to pursue construction management.

This need to attract a new generation of construction professionals is becoming increasingly urgent, since more than 400,000 UK construction workers are set to retire between 2018 and 2023.

Four freely available Minecraft Education Lessons can be downloaded by teachers and accessed via the Minecraft Education Platform. The lessons take place in Newtown, a specially-created virtual Minecraft city, in which students encounter a variety of problems that reflect construction challenges in contemporary cities. The challenge for students is to design, plan, collaborate and build solutions for future sustainable cities.

Students, usually in teams of 3 or 4, collaborate on areas of construction, maintenance, restoration, new build and refurbishment, in lessons that last between 3 and 6 hours. Exercises also include real life scenarios like the challenge of restoring Battersea Power Station.

Minecraft Education has already been successfully introduced in schools to teach subjects such as chemistry, architecture, art and physics. In March 2015, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure announced it would provide free licenses to over 200 schools and 30 libraries in Northern Ireland.

Bridget Bartlett, Deputy chief executive at the CIOB said:

“Combining Minecraft and a thorough curriculum for the teacher makes for a unique and immersive experience and will help reveal why the industry is important and why a career in construction can be so rewarding. There are 70 million people playing Minecraft, and just like Lego it has the capacity to inspire and attract a new wave of construction managers into an ever-increasing digital industry.

“What is exciting is that these young learners will not only have fun but also develop their communication, team working and mathematics skills; skills that construction has a high demand for. The lessons are designed to be teacher friendly and we hope construction employers will also want to use them in schools as they bid to switch the next generation onto a career in construction.”

To see the video of the project and to read all the supporting information about the lessons, go to CIOB Minecraft.

--CIOB

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