Recreating Learning Environments in Minecraft

A natural connection between Minecraft and physical environments is the ability for students to work on scale, ratio, and proportion by constructing their learning environment within a Minecraft world. In fact, for many classrooms “building your classroom/school in Minecraft” becomes a great first opportunity for students to collaborate and communicate as they reconstruct their learning space in a digital environment. Learning Opportunities Students can use measuring tapes and other tools to recreate their classroom in a Minecraft world. Teacher should experiment with ratio and scale in order to adapt this opportunity to their liking. Obviously using a scale of 1 block = 1 foot would create a very different world than 1 block = 1 inch (or any other measure). A big idea of proportionality for students to hook into is the understanding that you can scale up or down by any factor, but the ratio between Minecraft block and some physical measurement needs to remain constant. Have students think about how changing this ratio for different classroom builds or different parts of their school would cause their Minecraft build to change. For example, what if one group built 1 block = 1 foot while another group used 1 block = 1 inch? Students should try to estimate/calculate how many blocks would be required for the same wall, or floor, or even three dimensional space as the scale changes so dramatically. Links to Learn More • Scale City, PBS Media • Can Minecraft Teach Team Building, ISTE