BETTERGEOEDU: THE USE OF MINECRAFT AS AN INTERACTIVE TOOL TO FACILITATE THE KNOWLEDGE ON ROCKS AND MINERALS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

The use of games as learning tools has become a valuable way to help students to learn while having fun. Based on this idea, BetterGeo is a modification created by the Geological Survey of Sweden (SGU) on Minecraft, one of the most popular games in the world, to improve to help primary school students to get familiarised with the importance of raw materials in modern life and start learning basic concepts on geology, minerals, mining, mineral processing, and circular economy. Together with the development of the mod, BetterGeo projects also work in the development of learning materials to help teachers and students in this approach to the Raw Materials sector. The project developing this initiative, named BetterGeoEdu, is developed with the support of EIT Raw Materials, one of the eight Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) initiated by the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology), funded by the European Commission, and whose mission is to help boost the competitiveness, growth, and attractiveness of the European raw materials sector through radical innovation and guided entrepreneurship. The Technical University of Madrid is one of the partners participating in this pioneering initiative, and in this paper, the idea behind BetterGeo, the goals, and the partners of the consortium are described together with the innovative development of exercises and educational material designed to make easy to primary school students the first contact with raw materials. One of the exercises, which is described in this paper, is a new, fast, simple, and efficient learning tool on rocks and minerals, in the form of an interactive game complementing BetterGeo. It is designed for pre-university level students, with or without a vocation for natural sciences. With the support of four sample boxes containing igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary, and mineral rocks for the exercise, the student randomly chooses a sample and starts the game. The game raises several questions about the sample that the student must answer intuitively with a click. If the answer is affirmative, the system offers a route with more information about the sample. If the answer is negative, the system forces the student to go back and start again. If the students can complete the exercise, they will have access to the name of the rock or mineral and will be able to access the sample boxes to start a new analysis. The commands are interactive and intuitive, to better capture the student’s attention. This system offers several advantages: the student manages the entire process by himself, learns without prior knowledge, understands instantly the meaning of the questions and answers as they arise based on comparison with objects and situations known to the student. Additionally, it teaches the applications and uses of minerals and rocks in everyday life.