Global Awareness in a Rural Secondary Classroom: Minecraft and Macroeconomics

Introduction

This chapter focuses on use of Minecraft: Education Edition (MEE) to teach macroeconomics through a lens of global awareness to rural Midwestern secondary students. In most school districts across the United States, students receive little economic education (Education Commission of the States, 2019). Furthermore, most standards combine both microeconomic and macroeconomic concepts (National Council for the Social Studies, 2010; New Jersey Department of Education, 2020; South Dakota Department of Education, 2015). In today’s globalized economy, students have the ability to encounter a seemingly endless number of macroeconomic issues first-hand with little to no instructional context. Over the past few years, American students have witnessed trade wars, snags in the global supply chain, and increased rates of economic sanctioning. Although these types of events might have elevated economics education, many students find economics, especially macroeconomics, uninteresting and dull (Myers, 2010). Rural economics teachers face even more substantial barriers when covering global topics (Reed, 2010). Geographic isolation and often conservative perspectives make teaching global economic issues both difficult and more important when compared to other localities (Moffa, 2019; Waterson & Moffa, 2015, 2016). In what follows, the author discusses the use of a digital game-based learning (DGBL) simulation through the lens of global awareness to motivate rural students in the study of macroeconomics.