London Mayor Sadiq Khan has turned to Minecraft to ask players to redesign the city of Croydon to help cope with the climate crisis.
Minecraft is partnering with the Mayor’s Office and C40 Cities to participate in the Design Future London Schools Challenge 2023, which invites students to redesign the Croydon center, making it “a greener, safer and more prosperous place for everyone.”
Sadiq Khan appears in Minecraft to present a challenge that is open to all students across London. The aim of the initiative is to “inspire young Londoners to develop an interest in designing beautiful, affordable and sustainable places to live, work and visit.”
“Every young Londoner is entitled to a free Minecraft Education license to participate in the competition. Participants will have the opportunity to explore a specially created Minecraft world in the center of Croydon and create their own solutions block by block in Minecraft,” the task description continues. Find out more here.
Khan is the chairman of C40 Cities, a global network of mayors working together to overcome the climate crisis.
“Creating a greener, fairer and more prosperous London for future generations is my key priority,” Khan said (via Eurogamer). “Meeting my targets to combat air pollution and achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030 is a huge part of that, so I’m very excited to get help from the voices of tomorrow.”
“It was an honor for me to be presented as blocks and join the Minecraft family to launch the Design Future London Schools Challenge for young Londoners. London Minecraft World is a fun and exciting way for young Londoners to critically comprehend the created environment, collaborate with friends and peers and be creative, demonstrating their vision of the future of the capital,” he continued.
“I can’t wait to see the brilliant ideas that will come out of this challenge and wish all the young Londoners taking part good luck with their work.”
In recent months, Minecraft Education has teamed up with the BBC documentary series Frozen Planet 2 to create a series of educational worlds, worked with Europe’s largest environmental charity to draw attention to the ancient ruins of the United Kingdom, and launched a series of projects aimed at helping to educate young people about climate change, the environment and floods.
Elsewhere, one Minecraft creator reportedly spent three months recreating Toto’s “Africa” in the game.
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