The United States is, sadly, falling behind the rest of the world in math and science education. In order to combat this trend, innovative methodologies must be sought to supplement or replace traditional classroom experiences. These experiences often frustrate or disengage students; however, students are often easily engaged through games. Indeed, child psychologists tell us that infants and young children learn the most about their world through play. Therefore, the introduction of academic concepts and subjects into games is an effectual way to expand a student’s understanding and learning. Today, many students, from middle school to college, engage in the online world of Minecraft (almost 17,000,000 copies sold worldwide). Minecraft enables the player to create a virtual 3D world out of blocks and reshape their world at will. This presents an excellent opportunity to incorporate the concepts of chemistry (including polymer and materials chemistry) into this world and teach students. To this end we have developed a mod for Minecraft called Polycraft. Essentially, Polycraft incorporates the ideas of organic and polymer chemistry into the world of Minecraft enabling players to gather raw minerals (for catalysts) as well as crude oil, refine that oil, crack it, use the different streams to make monomers, use those monomers to make polymers, form those polymers into materials and use those materials to make things in the game.

Polycraft: Utilizing online gaming to enable next generation polymer chemistry education

249th National Meeting (2015)

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