ProtectIng, Restoring, and Promoting ! 

Auckland Zoo has teamed up with Minecraft Education, Team Workbench and key Australasian zoos to create Eco Detectives – an exciting new interactive game to inspire and empower students to become conservationists in their local communities.

It uses a game format to teach positive environmental behaviours that can be brought into the ‘real’ world. 

Players move through four Minecraft-created biomes – urban, drylands, woodlands and wetlands - identifying conservation challenges in each of these ecosystems and learning how to problem solve to overcome them and make positive change.

Practical skills and knowledge gained through the game can then be applied to conservation mahi in their own backyards and communities.

These burgeoning conservationists get to learn about everything from how to grow pocket forests, create habitats for threatened species, care for waterways, and learn about responsible pet ownership.

“We’re thrilled to be part of this innovative international collaboration. It really brings the world of conservation and the inextricable inter-connectedness of wildlife, people, and the environment alive and into the hands, devices and keyboards of millions of educators and students,” says Auckland Zoo’s conservation learning and community manager, Rachel Arnold.