{"id":2073,"date":"2020-06-23T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2020-06-23T09:00:38","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T08:00:38","slug":"building-our-understanding-of-diabetes-with-minecraft-even-if-you-dont-have-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/science-communication\/building-our-understanding-of-diabetes-with-minecraft-even-if-you-dont-have-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Building our understanding of diabetes with Minecraft (even if you don\u2019t have the game!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The inside of the human body, and all its organs, cells and molecules can be tricky to visualise, and that makes it difficult to understand how conditions like diabetes work. We can use things like models to help us see all these different features, and work out how they link together to do different things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But models can take up a lot of space, and most of us don\u2019t have anatomically accurate physical representations of the internal workings of the human body conveniently accessible at home, or even in many schools. Diagrams are an alternative, but they\u2019re generally not very interactive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The virtual construction game Minecraft, on the other hand, is great for exploring scientific concepts because it has many features and processes that relate to the real world, and can be used to visualise things that we can\u2019t usually see \u2013 such as cells in the human body. Children and young people are often familiar with the game as it\u2019s hugely popular, and this can give them a sense of expertise and ownership. We know Minecraft can act as a hook<\/a> for children to engage with science topics, and that by participating in our sessions they can increase their subject knowledge and understanding<\/a>, making it an effective tool for both catching children\u2019s interest, and supporting their learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what if we could use Minecraft to view and explore a large model of a human body on a computer? We could even get right inside it to investigate the internal organs, cells and processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In our \u2018Building our understanding of diabetes with Minecraft\u2019 project, we did just that. We have a human body constructed in Minecraft, which users can move around inside. They can explore the organs, cells and molecules inside it, and visualise and learn about processes that occur when someone does, and does not, have diabetes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n