James Weldon Johnson Park has been digitized as part of a "New Jax City" world that was created in Minecraft Education to spur Jacksonville students to learn about coding and urban planning. | Will Brown, Jacksonville Today
Published on April 14, 2025 at 9:39 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Jacksonville’s next great development idea might come from the mind and fingers of a child.
Monday, the city started the clock on the Jacksonville Build Challenge at the Minecraft Lab at Springfield Middle School.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
The three-week New Jax City Build Challenge allows students from elementary school through college to build their vision for Jacksonville’s riverfront in a “world” that resembles Downtown Jacksonville inside the education version of the mega-popular Minecraft video game.
The build challenge is possible through a partnership between Minecraft Education, C40’s Reinventing Cities initiative, Duval Schools and the city.
Minecraft appeals to children because it allows them to design almost anything their mind can conjure and their imagination is not limited by gravity.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Minecraft Education is commonplace throughout Duval classrooms, particularly in gifted and talented programs at the elementary and middle-school levels.
Every Duval Schools pupil can access Minecraft Education using their student ID number and downloading the game onto their computer. To access the New Jax City world, open “My Library” and type “New Jax City” or “Jacksonville” into the search bar.
From there, students are one click away from meeting local leaders and being transported to a digital Jacksonville.
While students can play Minecraft on the Jacksonville world for fun, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan has upped the ante with a Mayor’s Cup competition.
Those who enter will be judged on how they design a riverfront world that incorporates four prompts: sustainability and resilience; how the community will use it; the creativity and appearance of the build as well as a student’s presentation of their work.
The competition will have four divisions: Elementary, Middle, High School, College. Each division will have two teams that advance to the semifinals.
The eight semifinalists will present their builds to local educators, city leaders and experts on May 20.
“It’s so important for students to get access to coding and science, engineering, technology, mathematics, all of that,” said Nadine Ebri, CEO of Ebri Education, a nonprofit that seeks to bring STEM education to underserved communities.
Ebri is a former educator who worked for Microsoft before she ran for a position on the Duval County School Board last year. Those experiences helped her collaborate with city of Jacksonville Sustainability Manager Ashantae Green and others to launch the New Jax City Build Challenge.
Duval Schools Chief Information Officer Jim Culbert says one dividend of opening the Minecraft Lab has been an increase in girls expressing an interest in joining the information technology field.
Last year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that women represented 22.6 % of employees in high tech positions and that “female, Black, and Hispanic workers remained substantially underrepresented in the high tech workforce and sector.”
“It’s so important for girls especially at a young age to get access. A lot of times, we don’t necessarily see girls, or students of color going into the field. But, the reason why we don’t see them going into the field is because they typically didn’t get access until high school,” Ebri says.
Duval Superintendent Chris Bernier says the initiative will help create a better Jacksonville. He credits his predecessors for having the foresight to understand that gamifying education can help students learn.
“When you touch a student’s curiosity, their focus becomes almost immediate,” Bernier says.
Aliyah Jackson is a Minecraft Student Ambassador at Springfield Middle School. The idea of coding while playing appeals to the eighth-grader, who readily smiled at the mention of Minecraft.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing all of the different buildings, the structures and even the people, the non-playable characters,” says Jackson, who’s been playing Minecraft since she was in fourth grade.
She says the likes that her peers are also learning to enhance their builds with Python, a coding language that’s often used by beginners.
“I like how there are a lot of different textures in the game,” Jackson says. “Some of them you can code into the game. I see so many kids here playing the game and coding in it. I think it’s really fun.”
