PADANIA ACQUE ‘Virtual Water Infrastructure: the Cremona East Drinking Plant in Minecraft’
The innovative educational project by Padania Acque and Istituto Comprensivo Cremona Uno has been concluded.
A group of students from the first classes of the “A. Campi” of Cremona has rebuilt the Cremona East drinking water plant in the virtual world of Minecraft Education, the educational version of the famous video game
A virtual tour inside the drinking water treatment plant to discover all the mains water treatment processes that arrive in our homes. Thanks to “Virtual Water Infrastructure: the Cremona East Drinking Plant in Minecraft”, the innovative project created by fourteen students of the A. Campi lower secondary school, from today it is possible to visit the city plant in via Postumia, faithfully reconstructed and fully functional, in the virtual world of Minecraft Education.
For seven months the kids worked individually and in teams to reproduce the water infrastructure using the educational version of the third best-selling video game in the world, a 4.0 learning tool that allows you to develop educational content and multidisciplinary study plans.
The President of Padania Acque Cristian Chizzoli explains how the idea of proposing a new activity for a public company that deals with the management of the integrated water cycle was born. «Virtual Water Infrastructure: the Cremona East Drinking Plant in Minecraft» is designed to promote and enhance children’s abilities, to raise awareness among young people of the value of the water resource and to bring young generations closer to the Integrated Water Service and its technical expertise. A project that sees the fundamental commitment of the educating society, understood as a network of bodies, institutions and companies that, in synergy, collaborate in the implementation of activities aimed at the growth of young people. On behalf of Padania Acque, I thank and congratulate the students for having successfully completed this experimental project which we hope will arouse interest and attention from other water companies”.
The school director Maria Giovanna Daniela Manzia illustrates the educational value of the project. «The students were the protagonists of a unique educational path at a national level aimed at deepening their knowledge of the industrial water cycle by putting themselves to the test in the complex and exciting work of reconstructing the water system. A project based on the European key competences, defined by the European Commission for the development of elements such as critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, communication and negotiation skills, analytical skills, creativity and intercultural skills, and with a strong inclusive value. “Virtual Water Infrastructure: the Cremona East Drinking Plant in Minecraft” is in fact accessible to everyone because it allows you to use and stimulate the communication channels of younger children through automatic reading (immersive reader); of foreigners through the translation of contents, and of students with specific learning disabilities (dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia) through a visual dictionary of text analysis”.
THE PROJECT – The pilot project, the first in Italy carried out in synergy between a water company and an educational institution, is conducted by the Communication Office of Padania Acque together with the Headmaster Maria Giovanna Daniela Manzia and the teachers Monica Boccoli and Simonetta Anelli, better known as #maestreacubetti, as well as founders of CoderDojo in Cremona, an international non-profit movement born in Ireland in 2011 with the aim of introducing children and young people to IT through the creation of free programming clubs. The path was divided into several steps: a training cycle of four lessons aimed at all students of the first six classes of the Campi secondary school held by the technical staff of Padania Acque and having as their object the integrated water cycle; an operational phase which included a guided tour of the water purification plant by the working group; a GBL (Game Based Learning) computer laboratory, based on the game. The students, starting from moments of definition and search for information and from meetings with experts, followed a method of working in groups with a division of tasks: from conception, starting from drawings and scale reproductions on paper, up to to design and implementation. The entire process, in which the teachers carried out a support and supervision task, was constantly discussed between the subgroups and also with external experts to verify the correctness of what was achieved in the virtual world.
Below, the names of the students involved in the Virtual Water Infrastructure project: the Cremona East Drinking Plant in Minecraft
Becchi Lorenzo
Bertelli Leonardo
Boiocchi Francesco
Bonezzi Carlo
Caravelli Pietro
Cipelletti Alice
Iacovacci Emanuele
Lanzani Giovanni
Mantovani Miriam
Micalella Giorgia
NarjaKu Laila
Novarese Amalia
Stringhini Ettore
Tenerini Sofia
