An immersive, large-scale virtual field course for zoology students
Minecraft Millport is a collaboration with NeuronSafari, @NeuronSafari (Twitter). It gives students experience with fieldwork in a field like no other. Check out these articles in the TimesHigherEducation and this TeachingMatters blog.
Minecraft Millport takes place on Dumbrae Island, a 1:25 scale modification of Puerto Rico with four working beaches that vary in exposure:
Tutorial Island Introduces the students to the local flora and fauna, and gets them used to the controls:
Millport town contains a central transportation hub, and social spaces:
A flight though the hub
Beaches contain 100's of animals both on the surface and within rock pools
A flight across Clashfarland Beach
Data has been synthesised and inserted into the game: turtle size and distribution is gaussian, diversity in rock pools is poisson. Special tools, such as the carrot-on-a-stick allow students to extract data from entities
The Eco Lab allows students to study behaviour: food choice or responses to temperature gradients
TrapCams capture wildlife venturing onto the beach, while weather stations allow the collection of temperature variation data
End of Course Class picture, Field Zoology 2021
