Minecraft Research Paper

Minecraft can be described as an open-world, “sandbox” style game, which provides an opportunity for players to choose their own paths and methods of play. Created by Mojang AB founder Marcus “Notch” Persson and released November 2011, Minecraft aims to provide an alternative to traditional games that typically follow a linear progression of events and constrain the player(s) in a limited environment. Minecraft is available on a number of platforms, including computers, game consoles, and mobile devices running Android or iOS. Since its release, Minecraft for the computer has exceeded 16.8 million sales (at time of writing) making it the best-selling PC game of all time, and total sales for all platforms have exceeded 54 million copies, making

When we are young, we are taught the alphabet, usually through song or some sort of fun activity designed to help us memorize it. Video games such as JumpStart or Big Brain Academy allow people young and old to learn through simple games that are more interactive than a more traditional method of education. Despite the numerous other ways Minecraft can be played outside education, its value as a teaching tool should not be discounted. In the fields of science, we learn through experimentation how the world around us functions. Minecraft, while not a serious means of performing scientific experiments, does provide some simple tools that can introduce children to scientific concepts. For example, consider a scenario in which a player wants to plant potatoes in order to eat. First, the player might attempt to plant the potatoes indoors, so as to avoid an encounter with an enemy at night. The player may find that the potatoes do not grow, because the location they are planted may not have adequate lighting to provide the plants with the energy they need. As in the real world, plants in Minecraft require a source of water and light, as well as space, in order to grow. Next, the player may consider increasing the amount of light indoors to allow the potatoes to grow, or move them outside. By moving them outside, the potatoes will grow, but the player will have to alter the landscape so that they can grow, by making the ground flat and adding water if there is not a natural source. This requires resources that the player may not already possess, such as shovels, pickaxes, buckets for water, and a hoe to prepare the land for planting. At this point, the player may be growing hungry, and could be faced with the choice of rushing to gather resources, or forage for food out in the wilderness, which presents its own