Mer­ck marks 1M Minecraft down­loads in gam­ing-meets-sci­ence ed­u­ca­tion ef­fort

Mer­ck is ty­ing a hand­ful of mar­ket­ing trends to­geth­er in its Minecraft orig­i­nal game — the meta­verse, video gam­ing and sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing and math (STEM) all in one. Now af­ter a year in play, Mer­ck’s game in­side Minecraft, called “Pe­ri­od­ic Odyssey,” has more than one mil­lion down­loads — and lots of new fans.

The game is aimed at STEM par­ents and teach­ers with a fun and mem­o­rable way to help kids learn the pe­ri­od­ic ta­ble of el­e­ments. Play­ers can trav­el around the game’s sim­u­lat­ed world and pick up the nat­u­ral­ly-oc­cur­ring el­e­ments where they would oc­cur. Oxy­gen (O) is picked up from the air, and iron (Fe) from the ground, for in­stance.

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