A Laurentian University geoscience instructor has created a new game inspired by the popular video game Minecraft.
Tobias Roth likes to have a hands-on approach to teaching, so he designed the Minecraft-inspired Rock Identification Game, to do exactly what its name suggests.
Players can handle different minerals – all available in Minecraft – and have to identify them. If players are stumped, there are some cards with clues to help them along.
“Many kids nowadays have played Minecraft,” Roth said.
“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 said he came up with the idea for the game when he was out for a hike with some children to teach 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 said.
Because the children had all played Minecraft, they also wanted to smelt the ore and make things with it, like they would in the game.
Roth knew he had a captive audience and then started working on his game to inspire 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 said.
And now Laurentian’s Harquail School of Earth Sciences has partnered with the Greater Sudbury Public Library to make the game available at each of its 13 locations.
People can borrow the game at branches of the Greater Sudbury Public Library and play it there. They can’t take it home because Roth said some minerals in the game are quite rare.
“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,” said Chantal MacRae, the Greater Sudbury Public Library’s child and youth programmer, in a press release.
Roth said he now plans to make a second edition of the game with different rocks and minerals.
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