Creation of Sustainable Cities through Digital Game: A Proposal for the Teaching of Geography

Abstract

The use of methodologies that approach the daily lives of students, generating greater engagement and meaningful learning, can become the key to education today. The current generation, the so-called Digital Natives, are attracted to activities that involve technologies, such as the use of digital games. The present research was carried out with 28 students, from the 7th year of Middle School, in a private school in the interior of the state of São Paulo, and it is qualitative-quantitative research, having the case study as an approach. Initially, the students answered a pre-test that sought to find out which concepts on the subject the students had already acquired before the application of the project. The chosen theme, within the Geography discipline, was the 2030 Agenda – Sustainable Development Goals, specifically SDG number 11 which deals with Sustainable Cities and Communities. After the pre-test, a sensitization class was held about the topic and proposed to them a research activity. After the socialization of the research, the proposal involving the Minecraft game was presented so that, through it, the students in teams could create a sustainable city, demonstrating the acquired knowledge. To measure the learning gains, the metric used was the rubric, established by the class teacher. As a result, the game contributed to stimulating creativity, solving problems, and overcoming challenges proposed through the criteria previously established. In the end, they presented their developed cities using video creation and editing. The results show a gain in learning since 80% of the students reached levels between intermediate and advanced.