(Kevin Kyle/CHAT News)

By Adrian St.Onge

Crestwood students using video games to learn about city planning

Mar 19, 2024 | 5:22 PM

Students at Crestwood School have been learning about city planning using the video game Minecraft.

Students have been using the game within class parameters to build apartments and an assisted living center using actual city sites in Medicine Hat.

Minecraft was released in 2011 and in 2016, the game found a new lease on life when schools started using it as a teaching aid.

Medicine Hat’s public school division piloted a program this year using the game to teach students crucial information about city planning, including cost and resource management.

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Teacher Dave Van Leeuwen said he wasn’t surprised to see students take to the game, but rather the ownership of the projects they developed.

“I always think it’s really interesting to see how much the kids wanted to be part of the design process in the community,” Van Leeuwen said.

“You probably heard the questions ‘will we get credit if part of our design makes it in?’ and although the answer is no because these buildings have already been designed and are under development, it’s really neat,” he said.

“There’s a sense of pride and wanting to be involved in the development which I think is really exciting, so kids want to be part of these processes and that’s great.”

Sophia Paul and Louis Tucling, two grade four students, shared their thoughts on being able to work on the project.

“I like that we can do it at school and that someday we will possibly be living in these and it would be good to say like ‘oh, I helped make that’,” Paul said.

“When I first started my building, I did a little too much and then I had to make a new one, so my second attempt turned out very great and I kept going,” Tucling said.

“I used to have a pool in mine but I said ‘nah, that’s too expensive’ so I removed it and out in a community kitchen,” he said.

While the program is currently only piloted at Crestwood School, other schools within the division are signing up.

Van Leeuwen said the City of Medicine Hat as well as city managers have been a great resource and partner to work with.

Van Leeuwen said that students are really embracing the entirety of what the project signifies.

“They’re doing an entire research process of what is there in this area. What do apartment buildings need, what do we need close by, all those kind of connections,” Van Leeuwen said.

“There’s lots of connections that kids are making just in terms of what a city and a community needs.”

For students like Louis, he’s focused on tacking one problem in particular – homelessness.

“I just want to say that there’s anyone that wants a home, when my apartment gets built, you can just go in there.”