A Minecraft Revolution and Community Development

In the Spring of 2018, I met with our fifth grade teachers to discuss various lessons they were working on. When they mentioned the American Revolution, I thought that would be perfect for use in Minecraft Education Edition. They liked the idea and we spent some time spinning ideas on how to best craft a project around their lesson. One of the ideas that I threw out was to create a virtual museum dedicated to the American Revolution. Students would be grouped in pairs of two and given a 10x10 area to depict a visual representation of a specific event in the revolution. Due to many end of the year activities and testing (yay) we did not get to the project before school let out for the summer. However, since these teachers had a looping class they would then have the same students in sixth grade. We were able to pick back up with the project in October once things calmed down from the start of the year.

The first step in creating this project was to teach the students about the revolution. Once the teachers felt students were ready, then we would start the Minecraft portion. Students had to begin their research before even stepping foot in the computer lab and working within Minecraft. This took some time, and students did not start the Minecraft portion until late October. The two teachers then came to the lab with their students on different days. The Minecraft world was started by me where I carved out areas for the students to work in. I enlisted the help of my 7 year-old son at home to help me begin the template. We created 10x10 squares that were connected via a walkway which wove its way through the 18 different plots. Mrs. Evans and Mr. Cerullo broke up their student groups into pre-revolutionary and revolutionary events. The museum tour began in an atrium which led to the pre-revolutionary wing.

Students worked off and on for a month to create a fully immersive and interactive museum that anyone can walk through. Students were also able to easily some of their errors when walking through the museum and reading the many signs/information boards throughout the museum. Some students even got extra creative during the process. One of our students designed a horizontal redstone firework launcher to mimic the British troops firing on the colonists during the Boston Massacre. Below are some of the finished scenes in our museum.

                             

       

                              

At the same time this project was going on, I was also working with second grade teachers on a community project. These students were learning about what makes up a community and jobs within the community. I again started them off with a template with building plots for the groups of students.

These students researched the various jobs within a town and which services are essential for a community. Groups designed schools, firehouses, police stations, etc within their own community. For this project, each class was responsible for their own Minecraft community world. All structures in the world were completely student designed and placed. The teachers working on this project were amazed with the results and how well their students excelled with this project.