Edmonton in Minecraft: students design livable public spaces

Students at an Edmonton school are reimaging the Quarters neighbourhood using Minecraft and Lego.

Students are getting the chance to imagine a livable community in the Quarters through Minecraft Education.

It’s part of a competition through Edmonton Public Schools and the Students Build Edmonton partnership with the city.

Students get to apply real-world design principles to reimagine public spaces using Minecraft Education.

On Friday, students at Bessie Nichols School got to learn from city planners about what it takes to build a neighbourhood, including human-centric design, building safe streets, understanding the history of a neighbourhood, zoning rules and sustainable building practices.

“Streets are a little different downtown, because a lot of the time the streets are investments. They’re kind of catalysts for future redevelopment,” said Jane Handa, a planner with the City of Edmonton. “So we as planners look at them a little bit differently than just a mode of getting from (Point) A to B.

“There’s a lot that one can do downtown, but you have to prioritize where it would be the most impactful change that you could make.”

Last year, students examined downtown as a whole, this year, students are taking a crack at city planning in the Quarters. They will use guiding principles from the area redevelopment plan to imagine how the area could grow into a “vibrant, safe, and welcoming place,” according to Edmonton Public Schools.

“It’s a lot more complicated than it seems, and I think we’re learning from the Grade 4 students today just as much as they’re learning from us,” said Handa.

“Kids often have much more insightful ideas when it comes to what would make them spend time on a street downtown, and we get a lot of fun and whimsical ideas.”

Minecraft, a sandbox survival game which first released in 2011 and is now available on more than 20 platforms and operating systems, is one of the best-selling video games of all time.

Minecraft Education promotes immersive learning in a variety of subjects, from computer science, AI literacy, cyber safety, math, science and more.

More than 40,000 school systems across 140 countries use Minecraft Education, according to the program’s website.

“Seeing the excitement in students’ faces when they get to work with a tool or a game that they’ve been using for a while, like Minecraft, and really seeing the educational possibilities, seeing them get excited about doing things in the classroom is really, really rewarding,” said David Herrera Cruz, an educational technology consultant.

The winners of the competition will be announced in June. Winning submissions will be shared with city planners as part of ongoing planning work for the Quarters.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Dave Mitchell