Description:
GeoCraftNL is a Minecraft server owned by the science centre GeoFort which allows children to build and recreate castles, windmills, churches and their own houses in a virtual 3D world. Minecraft is an online modelling platform, much like a digital LEGO, which is extremely popular with children and adolescents around the world. The whole of the Netherlands has been constructed by GeoFort in a 1:1 scale with approximately 1 trillion Minecraft blocks by using cadastral data and height maps. Each block represents 1㎥ in the ‘real’ Netherlands. 30,500 children now play a part in the GeoCraftNL community. Anyone who registers at the GeoCraftNL server can build a virtual version of the building they want and users are encouraged to recreate the built heritage of their own city. In order to recreate these historic buildings, they seek out pictures and information about the interior and exterior of each structure. The players can digitally wander through castles and hide secrets for other players to discover by using digital treasure maps. As they are increasingly engaged with the monuments virtually, the children are naturally more enthusiastic to visit these buildings in reality. This is also encouraged by offering prizes to children who find codes while building a virtual monument which they then receive when they visit the monument in real life. The server is now being managed by a 19-year-old and has a community of 600 mayors (mostly aged 11), 20 commissioners of the King (each 15-years-old) and 6 ministers (each 18-years-old). GeoFort facilitates these participants and helps them to develop and manage the community, however the work is primarily being done by the young community itself.