A middle school elective in Prosper ISD has sixth graders running their own virtual towns, and the district says the lessons go well past playing a game.
The course is called Metaverse. Students work in teams inside Minecraft Education Edition, the classroom version of the popular building game, to create a society from nothing, the district said in a feature posted this week.
Along the way they take on questions a real town would face: how to protect the community from digital threats, what kind of economy would let it prosper, and what rules and ethical standards should govern it.
Kristen Cole, who teaches the class at Bridges Middle School, described it as project-based. Students learn "what it takes to create a thriving online civilization" by studying how actual societies handle economics, government, ethics, security and community life, she said in the district's article.
Roles and careers
Each student in a group takes on a specific job, and the group shares one goal for its world. The district said the class also has students look into careers connected to digital work, including game development, programming, digital design, architecture, cybersecurity and managing online communities, so they can decide whether to keep going down that path.
Cole said the aim is for students to produce projects that show they understand how communities and systems function, and to practice skills such as collaboration, problem-solving and using technology responsibly that carry over to other fields.
