Innovative Minecraft Project to Teach New Zealand Students Horticulture and Agriculture

Aotearoa New Zealand has been brought to life in MInecraft to inspire and teach our next generation about working in the area of horticulture and agriculture. We worked with Sow the Seed, HATA and brought in Nathan Scott to help build this world for teachers and schools to use throughout Aotearoa.

We selected Totara Estate as a farm to base the world on as it is significant to the success of our farming. It was the first farm to export refridgerated goods outside of New Zealand. 

We find the area we want in Google Earth before downloading LINZ data. The data is placed into topographic software, graphic and world building software. This is where we can draw in roads and add building floorplans for building. Finally this is turned into blocks and a Minecraft world. 

We then work on recreating the buildings before adding activities. Each block in Minecraft is about 1 metre in real life and we try and be accurate as we can. There is always a touch of artistic license in the build however. 

The activities we create are made for real life, incorporating real world problems. For example, a challenge is to eradicate a pest attacking the local pipfruit in an orchard. Students have to put together a pest control plan to solve the problem.

The world and website www.sowtheseed.org.nz are available free of charge for all schools around Aotearoa New Zealand.