The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) has announced it has opened registration for the Spring 2022 info session of the Guided ROM Minecraft, an online game-based learning program designed to support curriculum expectations from the Coding strand of the Ontario Mathematics Curriculum.
A part of the program is the Museum Math: Rocks and Minerals program which also supports expectations from the Grade 4 Rocks and Minerals strand of the Ontario Science Curriculum. Virtual visits are coordinated with a ROM Educator at key progress points during the program, but the downloadable map and hybrid nature of Minecraft: Education Edition allows educators and students to complete the in-game work according to their own classroom schedule. The structure of the program can be found here.
Minecraft: Education Edition aims to promote creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. For several years, the ROM has invited students onto its pilot Minecraft server to build personalized learning across a wide variety of themes including science, resource use, community, cultural respect, and the cascading impacts of individual actions. The museum says its future Minecraft programs will be developed to cover additional subject areas.
Those who missed the info session on December 8 should contact romlearning@rom.on.ca (make sure the word Minecraft is in the subject line) before January 14 for instructions on how to apply for the Spring Session program. The program is free to participate in and designed for students to complete independently or in pairs. The independent program is now available now in the Minecraft Lesson Library.