Jason Arias’ "Coaster-vation of Energy" is the first PH-made lesson in Minecraft Education’s in-game library

Though Ateneo de Manila Junior High School (AJHS) Science faculty Alfredo Joaquin “Jason” Arias didn’t know it at the time, he was on the path to making history on January 13, 2023. That was the day Arias- who is a 28-year-old registered mechanical engineer who teaches Physics to Grade 10 Ateneans- published his Minecraft lesson “Coaster-vation of Energy” on the Minecraft Education website. Over the Christmas break, Arias had spent approximately 12 hours creating & coding the game, which was a Physics lesson designed to teach students about potential and kinetic energy using a virtual Minecraft roller coaster. The game asked players/students to do three things: one, to measure how far the rollercoaster goes as it rolls down from a high place; two, to build their own high-speed virtual rollercoasters; and three, to reflect on the inefficiency of energy conversion from potential to kinetic energy and relate it to the conservation of energy.

The lesson quickly received positive notices from English-speaking teachers around the world. “Pretty soon I got a lot of feedback… emails from around the world from people who were trying to access the file so they could tweak the spreadsheets to suit their lesson’s needs,” Arias recalls. “There were emails from Germany, Pakistan, Australia, and other countries.”

The game gathered momentum much like a runaway rollercoaster, and soon, Microsoft came calling. On February 18, the software giant reached out and asked Arias if his lesson could be included in the company’s latest Minecraft Education game update. The email explained that Microsoft wanted to expand its in-game library, and “Coaster-vation of Energy” was apparently very popular with users (though Microsoft will not divulge exactly how many times the lesson has been downloaded). After Arias gave his consent, the lesson debuted in Minecraft Education’s game update on March 1, 2023. With that, it became the first Filipino-made lesson in Minecraft Education’s in-game library.

Arias is no stranger to making waves in the Minecraft community, having achieved some fame for creating (with close friend and high school classmate Miko Abola) Minecraft versions of beloved Ateneo de Manila landmarks like the Church of the Gesù and the High School campus in 2012, during his last year as an Ateneo High School (AHS) student. Eleven years later, Arias still gets smiles and awestruck looks from Minecraft-loving Ateneans when they learn that he’s THE guy who made THE Minecraft replica of the AHS campus. “The reactions I get are even more special now when the students realize that the person who made these virtual replicas also happens to be their teacher,” he shares. 

When Arias was a college student at the University of the Philippines’ Diliman campus in 2015, he became an administrator of the Filipino Minecraft communities PinoyCraft and AdoboCraft. For one of the community’s projects, he made a Minecraft replica of Rizal Park on Rizal Day (December 30), gaining national attention when Rappler published a story about his “minecrafted” creation. Then only 21, Arias was still conscious about protecting his privacy and requested that the writeup only mention his gamer handle, not his real name, and not include a photo of him. Thus, it was his moniker in the Filipino Minecraft fan community, “Dyeyzzon914,” which received all the acclaim and adulation from the Rappler article. 

With such passion and devotion for the virtual world-building game, it was no surprise that Jason Arias was named a Minecraft Education Ambassador (formerly known as a Minecraft Global Mentor) in December 2021, the Philippines’ 15^th such mentor. As stated in the welcome letter from the Minecraft team, Arias’ inclusion in its roster of ambassadors had thrust him into “…a community of passionate educators all over the world who are dedicated to helping others use Minecraft to build a better world through the power of play.”

Encouraged by fellow ambassadors to write/create new Minecraft lesson plans and worlds, he composed “Coaster-vation of Energy” during his Christmas break in 2022, working on it for a couple of hours on certain days until he published it on the Minecraft Education website on January 13, 2023. 

Those who log in to the lesson are taken to a classroom that is a dead-ringer for a typical AJHS classroom, complete with the school’s quintessential barred windows. There, the player also “meets” virtual classmates “Josef,” “JB,” “Stephen,” and “Alonzo,” all of whom are based on student leaders Arias taught in School Year 2022-2023. In the classroom, the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) discuss Physics concepts and the students begin their experiments. When the players choose to “Go Outside,” they are transported to the first station and tasked to observe the effect of the release height of a Minecart on the distance it travels on the track, and to apply concepts learned about potential and kinetic energy. In the second station, players are greeted by “Mr. Arias,” the creator’s avatar, who then challenges them to build a rollercoaster that will go as far as possible but can be powered only by the force of gravity. Other colleagues of Mr. Arias’ from the real world, like “Mrs. Antonio” and “Mr. Ayun,” also appear in this station.

Arias believes that the lesson’s global popularity is due to the fact that everyone knows what a rollercoaster is, making it a fun and ideal springboard for discussions on two topics that are staples of any high school Physics class: potential energy and kinetic energy.

While Minecraft ambassadors are given the privilege to upload and share their Minecraft lessons in the Minecraft Education website, not many lessons make it into the in-game library. “They have to be curated to go from the website to the game itself,” he explains, “and to get a homegrown Filipino lesson like this in the game where it’s in the company of lessons made by Minecraft itself is a different-level achievement that breaks boundaries for Filipino educators. Hopefully, more teachers from our country are able to follow suit because we have lots of great teachers here who could make an impact not just locally, but globally as well.”    

His momentous, pioneering achievement aside, what makes Arias truly proud is the fact that his “homemade” virtual rollercoaster is engaging students all over the world and teaching them important Physics concepts. “When our (AJHS) students in the advanced Science class tried the game, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. For them, it wasn’t just about completing a lab activity or lesson, but also creating fun memories that will help them remember the lesson for life,” he beams. “There’s something about video game-based learning that’s truly engaging, which is why I’m constantly trying to introduce more game-based learning experiences in my Physics class that will tap our students’ love for video games and spatial reasoning skills,” he concludes.

Another amazing achievement unlocked, Mr. Arias.