Math!!!!

The 7th grade is starting building for our world religions unit. The step after writing their essays is finding a building and converting the measurements into minecraft block measurements. The first part of this process, is searching up blueprints and floor plans to get the various lengths, widths, and heights of their building. After that, they convert the measurements into yards, then into minecraft blocks. One block in minecraft is equal to 3 yards. Some of them are then realizing that they have to size their building up or down to make it proportional to the other buildings in the world. It's a lot of math!!

Guest bloggers- The Beast Roller Coaster of the Century

While making the best house in the world we upgraded it with the best roller coaster in the world. After some hard work from Simon N, Nick C, Owen S and Brixhildo D, one of the best creations in Minecraft was made. It is the most beast thing alive. A roller coaster of great fun and of amazing size. To just look at it will blind you from the awesomeness. This roller coaster will set records, bring laughter, and cure world hunger. It started from the bottom and now it's here. This new structure will help people across the world who are looking for fun and to become blind from the light of fun. Thank you to these gentlemen for creating the best roller coaster in the world.
- The Roller coaster Men -

Roller coaster video

Bud Not Buddy. Connecting English to Minecraft

One of the units that my 6th grade students LOVED was our Bud Not Buddy unit. They read the book in their ELA (English language arts) class and we reviewed the plot, story line, characters, and setting in class together. In groups, or working alone, I'm generally very flexible about this, they chose a part of the book to recreate in MinecraftEdu. The basic requirements of the project were:

Project requirements-

1. You will build a replica of all the elements of the scene- buildings, surrounding area, landscape…. Build some sort of boundary or border around your area so that players know when they are entering or leaving your scene. (Note- I ended up building border blocks around their areas to help with a few student's behavior choices)

2. You will spawn NPCs as characters in your scene. We should be able to interact with these people because their job is to help the player learn about the scene. (Note- NPCs are Non-Player Characters that players can create and program to be interactive)

3. You will create some chests with books, or a series of info blocks to teach players about the following (NPCs can also be used to tell about some of these)

1. A summary of the scene (who, what, where, when and how)

2. A description of the setting

3. Descriptions of the main characters and what they do in the scene

4. Two Text-to-Self connections - Connect your personal experiences to Bud not Buddy. Think about the following questions: ● What does this remind me of in my life? ● How is this similar to in my life? ● How is this different from my life? ● Has something like this ever happened to me? ● How does this relate to my life? ● What were my feelings when I read this? ● Have I changed my thinking as a result of reading this? ● What have I learned?

Like every project we do, they completely surpassed my expectations! I videoed a very small part of their world for a presentation I did, and thought you might be interested in seeing it. I narrated the video during the presentation, so the only sound on the video is background noise, sorry about that!

Bud Not Buddy video

Sustainable building update

The 8th grade students have been eating up this sustainable building project! I was worried it might feel too confining and "sciency" for them, but they are loving the challenge. As usual, I am completely impressed with what they are coming up with!

Here are some pictures:

MACUL Student Showcase

Today and tomorrow, March 19th and 20th is the MACUL (macul.org) conference for technology focused education and educators. One of the fabulous things they put on, is a student showcase presenting students and teachers from Michigan who are doing innovative things with technology. I applied to present Minecraft Math, and was accepted. Four students and I spent two hours talking to a  lot of people about what we do in our Minecraftedu classroom, and it was amazing. My students- Mckenna, Trinnity, Lia, and Anna were articulate, and engaging, and smart, and well just their fabulous selves! I got to gush about how amazing MinecraftEdu is and about the fabulous things my students have and are doing. Which reminds me, I owe you an update on my classes! It was wonderful to talk to teachers and technology people who are as excited about Minecraft as I am.

Here we are!

We went with the 7th grade math teacher who presented using Lego Movie maker in her Math enrichment. Here's the entire gang!

Data, data, data...

There are a variety of experiments going on in ScienceCraft! Along with the experiments, there is a good amount of really interesting data being collected. Here is just a sampling….

Hypothesis- we think the baby sheep will turn purple

Red Sheeps	Blue Sheeps	Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #1	Blue Sheep #1	Blue Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #2	Blue Sheep #2	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #3	Blue Sheep #3	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #4	Blue Sheep #4	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #5	Blue Sheep #5	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #6	Blue Sheep #6	Blue Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #7	Blue Sheep #7	Blue Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #8	Blue Sheep #8	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #9	Blue Sheep #9	Red Baby Sheep
Red Sheep #10	Blue Sheep #10	Red Baby Sheep

Hypothesis- A Cow will drop fastest

animal 1	height 1	time 1	animal 2	height 2	time 2	animal 3	height 3	time 3
cow	6 blocks	2 seconds	cow	6 blocks	2 seconds	cow	6 blocks	2 seconds
horse	6 blocks	1 second	horse	6 blocks	1 second	horse	6 blocks	1 second
pig	6 blocks	2 seconds	pig	6 blocks	2 seconds	pig	6 blocks	2 seconds
ocelot	6 blocks	2 seconds	ocelot	6 blocks	2 seconds	ocelot	6 blocks	2 seconds
donkey	6 blocks	2 seconds	donkey	6 blocks	2 seconds	donkey	6 blocks	2 seconds
chicken	6 blocks	4 seconds	chicken	6 blocks	4 seconds	chicken	6 blocks	4 seconds

Hypothesis- If I mine with a diamond pickaxe Redstone will break the fastest.

Diamond ore	Emerald ore	Gold ore	Redstone ore	Obsidian	Iron ore
3.5 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	1.5 seconds	14.5 seconds	2seconds
2 seconds	2 seconds	2.5 seconds	2 seconds	18 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	1 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	15 seconds	2.5 seconds
2 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	2.5 seconds	15.5 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	15 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	14.5 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	15 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	15.5 seconds	2.5 seconds
2.5 seconds	2 seconds	2 seconds	3 seconds	15 seconds	2.5 seconds

There are also students conducting experiments testing how high horses can jump when wearing different kinds of armor, in what biomes trees grow fastest, how long it takes ice to melt with fire and lava, how quickly chickens swim, and many more.

Check back for videos of the science complex and the experiments in action!