The metaverse is much older than Facebook’s recent attempt to make baby boomers fall in love with virtual reality.

Navigating through your eleventh year, Minecraft is more popular than ever, with an active player count of nearly 172 million in August 2022 alone. But there’s more to the game than building castles and slashing Creepers.

September saw the full release of Minecraft Educational Edition, which has been available in beta since 2016. During that six-year period, the game has become a powerful platform for interdisciplinary learning on a wide range of topics, from climate change to literature and indigenous cultures. Shares all the same features and functionality of “bedrock” Minecraftwith stronger privacy and security tools, and a library packed with educational resources and…