Bridging Worlds: blending organic and co-created digital environments to support neurodivergent young people in mainstream education.

Project Description

This project will support N groups of neurodivergent young people in mainstream education in meeting the following objectives through extracurricular activity: •to learn about and take part in conservation activities at Poole Farm •to develop a custom Minecraft world and mod pack for the Poole Farm they would like to see, through the virtual modelling of conservation activities •to host a virtual space for other young people within the Minecraft world, exploring conservation at Poole Farm and encouraging them to take part in similar activities These are the overall objectives for the project. As this is a participatory research activity, the participants will be asked to set their own objectives for the world and virtual space, which will influence ongoing conservation activities at the site itself. This project builds on and extends a recent project with PCC Poole Farm and Youth Service and the University of Salford, which explored UK nature conservation as an educational topic through the use of Minecraft. This was the second phase of a participatory research project that first took place with a primary school in Salford in 2023. This new project will be based at Poole Farm, Derriford and will involve young people from local schools/colleges (drawing on existing relationships between PCC and local schools/colleges) who have been identified as neurodivergent and in need of additional support to engage/achieve in statutory education. Poole Farm has an outdoor classroom that has been used for Forest School activities, which is within the Beaver enclosure; they also have an indoor classroom that can be used for some activities. Key objectives relate to the thematic areas of (1) improvement of life skills and (2) pathways to employment or improvement of employability skills., and include: 1. To explore how conservation education can be taught within community-based projects with the support of virtual spaces. 2. To develop a facilitators' resource pack (for teachers, youth and community workers) and training for using Minecraft for educational play that is adaptable to other locations. We will work with 30 participants across 3 groups, in weekly workshops running over 6 weeks per group. Each workshop will have a dual location; the Poole Farm site itself, and a virtual Poole Farm in Minecraft. Activities will be structured as: 1)Surveying evidence of wildlife and other seasonal conservation activities with the support of the site rangers, as well as creative activities, such as taking photographs and sound recordings. 2)Customising the Minecraft world to reflect the information, skills, and resources gathered from the site activities. This will include the creation of custom wildlife (‘mobs’) and modifying the world to create the conditions for these mobs to spawn and flourish. In this way, participants will be combining real-world conservation activities with creative skills, allowing them to develop the kind of natural space they would like to see. This will culminate in a conference at Plymouth Marjon University in June 2025, where the participants will curate their Minecraft world for a wider group of young people.