How to try out Minecraft Education Edition

While any Minecraft player worth their salt could tell you some of the differences between Java and Bedrock, far fewer could tell you what the differences between Java/Bedrock and the Education edition are. In fact, knowledge of the Education edition is not particularly common in the game's fandom as a whole.

So, what is the Education edition, and how can you play it?

---

What is Minecraft Education Edition?

Minecraft Education is two things: the first is an education partnership Mojang Studios has set up with schools. Schools can license the Education edition from Mojang and use it as a virtual teaching environment.

Features are added to the game, such as an element constructor, where students can set the number of protons, electrons, and neutrons in an atom to produce particular elements. There is also a drag-and-drop coding interface, where students can code a character that interacts with the Minecraft world.

However, it requires a valid school to license the game, and then it also requires a valid student email to sign in. This means the advanced features of this version will remain exclusive to students.

The second thing is that the Minecraft Education edition is a setting within the Bedrock edition that can be toggled on during world creation to allow some of the Education edition features to be accessible within Bedrock. One of these is the element constructor.

---

How to activate Education Edition within Minecraft Bedrock

The location of the Education Edition toggle within the game (Image via Mojang Studios)

The first thing you will need to do to try out Bedrock's Education edition is open the game's launcher and use it to open Minecraft Bedrock. From here, you will need to make a new world, as the Education edition cannot be applied to an existing one.

Within the new world settings, switch the game mode to creative. You need to do this to get access to the new items and workstations. Then click over to the cheats tab and set the cheats toggle to "On." This will allow for customizing the cheats applied to the world about to be created. Then, scroll down to the very bottom of the list.

Near the bottom of the cheats list should be a toggle labeled "Education Edition." This toggle is set to "Off" by default. You will need to switch this toggle to the "On" position. You can also make other changes to the world here, such as turning keep inventory on or turning off fire spread.

With the toggle on, you should load into a world where you can open the creative menu and search for "element." If you see an item called the "element constructor" then you know the Education edition is functioning. If you do not, you will need to exit the world, enter world settings, and make sure that the Education edition toggle is set to "On."

---

With that, the Education edition is now on and working in your new world. From here, you can experiment with combining different elements and molecules together to see what compounds you can make. There are also new and interesting items to craft and use, meaning there is a lot of new potential content.