Minecraft: Education Edition and KIDS AND BEES!

Big news from the virtual bee bubble! Kids and Bees has partnered with Minecraft: Education Edition to produce a new world, and a number of lessons, to introduce students to bees' dynamic and fascinating roles in their own hives and in broader ecosystems.

Minecraft: Education Edition is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. Educators in more than 115 countries are using Minecraft: Education Edition across the curriculum! Through project-based lessons, students build critical 21st century skills like collaboration, creative problem solving and digital citizenship.

Being someone who is in the dark ages of tech innovations in the classroom, I didn’t know quite how to react when I got an email from someone at Microsoft, asking if I’d like to collaborate on a Minecraft video game to teach kids about bees (my childhood era is one of overhead projectors and playing Oregon Trail on an Apple II - remember “the turtle”?!).

But the message couldn’t have come at a better time. I had already set a goal with the American Beekeeping Federation’s Foundation board members to create more online curriculum for kids, to increase reach and accessibility. There is so much knowledge buzzing around in my head that I love to share with kids, but there is only one of me, and such a big world. Little did I know, in early January, that the whole world would bunker down and “go online” in just a couple of months.

As I sat an watched my live education events being canceled and delayed, one knocking into the other - going through my calendar like dominoes - I was dumbstruck. I had planned to teach over 700 kids about bees, and about 50 adults how to teach kids about bees in the coming year. In addition to our summer programs and classroom events, my plan was to throw up a couple of cheeky videos for kids online, and work on V2 of the Kids and Bees Handbook, as my contribution to the virtual learning space. I had not anticipated pivoting to 100% online education in 2020, and had no clue how I would pull that off.

Learning of the potential capacity and accessibility of Minecraft was a sanity-saver. Millions of students and teachers already have access to Minecraft: Education Edition through their schools (check to see if you have an account or learn how to get a free demo here). That potential reach is what my dreams are made of!

So I said “YES!” and set off on a journey to conceptualize “Build with Bees.” My collaborator, Minecraft: Education Edition Program Manager, Bryan Bonham, asked me to think of some ideas for the game “world” and to throw out a few suggestions for lesson plans. I proposed three different worlds, each with a different focus: a beehive, a farm, and a wild space. I also thought up a few lesson plan outlines to pair with each world. Thinking he would pick one world, and the three or four lessons plans that paired with it, I was overjoywhelmed (yes, that’s a word now) when he accepted ALL of them.

I immediately hired Tara Laidlaw to help me write curriculum for the project. I had met Tara at a workshop for environmental educators in the before-covid times (I’m not sure when, it’s all a blur at this point). Having been so impressed with her smarts and enthusiasm for teaching kids about soil and farming, we were already wading into the shallow end of creating a new curriculum for Kids and Bees together, but when this project came up - I grabbed her and threw her into the deep end with me! When Tara suggested that we also create teacher’s guides and worksheets to pair with all the lesson plans, I knew I had chosen the perfect over-achieving partner for this endeavor.

Also in cahoots was the video game design team, Lifeboat, which consists of a management team here in the US, and a squad of designers in Serbia. I will be forever thankful for their patience as I did my best to learn how to play Minecraft, and learn Minecraft speak like “NPC” and “MOB,” while simultaneously giving direction on how the game should look, and what it should do. Basically - they were the go-between my imagination and a tangible, yet virtual finished product. Not understanding the limitations of the game, I obviously just assumed there were none * wink * and relied heavily on them to “make it work.” Being a recovering perfectionist, I tend to fall off the wagon in times of high stakes, and I’d just like to extend a direct thank you to Cory Stadther, Lifeboat’s Lead Content Producer, for putting in 14 hour days right beside me and being kind, responsive, and committed, while I was not as cool as a cucumber.

Did I mention that we were muddling through all of this during the rise of a global pandemic, the start of the third Civil Rights era, and a historic time of civil unrest in the US? Alongside this, we had completely pivoted BGO’s scope of work for 2020 from primarily educational programs to almost all research and conservation projects. I’m forever thankful for the ability to do this, but in front of myself in the team sat a stack of doing-everything-for-the-first-time, which is incredibly hard, no matter how much you love it. Oh, yes… and homeschooling. Truth be told, I really wanted to be curled up on my couch - eating a corndog, drinking a marshmallow milkshake, and binge watching Fleabag for the fourth time.

With all that being said, I couldn’t be more proud, or more impressed, with the finished product. The game has been translated by Lifeboat into eight languages, so that alone catapults my goal of reach and accessibility for kids bee education into space! Um, and did I mention that Lifeboat made me into an “NPC” (Minecraft for Non Player Character)? Yes, I’m a video game character now 😉 All I need is an action figure, and my life will be complete.

The new “world” has three different lands to explore and learn from: The Beehive, Beetopia, and The Farm. Each has a suite of lesson plans and teacher’s guides that can be used both in the classroom, and at home for homeschooling. I’ll also mention here that this game isn’t just for kids, I think adults will also get a kick out of foraging for honey on a giant bee and creating a regenerative bee pasture - I know I do!

In the Beehive section of the “Build with Bees” world, the player is as small as a bee.  She flies from the hive to collect nectar and pollen, and returns to the vast world of the honey beehive.  Inside the hive, the bee raises brood, makes honey and bee bread, builds wax comb, learns about the waggle dance, seals the hive with propolis, and more! 

Students will venture from the honey bee hive and get to know a few other bees. In the Beetopia section of the world, the player will explore the habitats of bumble bees, sweat bees, and mason bees. They will learn all about the unique ways bees build their homes, as well as the challenges bees face.

In the Farm section of the world players can raise bees, build beehives, plant food, fiber, and flowers, and talk with farmers and beekeepers about bee-friendly and regenerative agriculture. They will learn all about the science of pollination, the importance of bees, and how we can all contribute to bees’ survival.

The game was published on August 10th, and has already created a buzz. Last week the “Build with Bees” world was the “Download of the Week,” and this week our “Life Cycle” lesson plan is Minecraft: Education Edition’s “Lesson Plan of the Week”! I was also honored to be a guest on this season’s M:EE Podcast - listen here.

Although the game, lesson plans, and teacher’s guides are finished, my work with this project is far from done. I’m going to be using it as a teaching tool for years to come. We’ve already been brainstorming ways to incorporate it into the 2021 virtual American Beekeeping Federation Conference’s Kids and Bees event, the upcoming Hive to Table event, and even as a fun activity for farmers in the National Farmer’s Union’s September Fly-In.

In the meantime, you can find more information about Minecraft: Education Edition here, how to download the game here, all of the lesson plans and teacher’s guides are here, and a guide to know which curriculum goes with which game, and the suggested order they go in, is here.

Note: If you aren’t a classroom teacher with a M:EE licence - here is a blog on how to get M:EE for homeschoolers.

So much gratitude to Bryan Bonham and the team at Microsoft and M:EE for giving me this opportunity, to Tara and Annika for all of your hard work on the curriculum and the new Kids and Bees website, to Lifeboat for making our bee world as real as possible, and to the Bee Girl and ABF Foundation boards for all of your support.

Happ-bee gaming!