Exploring Canada's History with Minecraft Education Edition

I’ve been working with teachers & students at different schools in Park West School Division to explore Canada’s history with Minecraft EDU projects designed by The Cobblestone Collective.

We have really enjoyed this creative way of thinking about Canada’s past, learning about history and sharing what we know about our history!

The Canada's History Crate from Cobblestone Collective (available as a free download here) includes suggested activities and video lessons guided by 2 teachers. Our learning activities included:

• Building a settlement in Minecraft
• Building the Canadian Pacific Railway
• Learning about Viola Desmond and her work to promote equity, inclusion and human rights
• Adding an equitable and accessible theatre to our settlements in honour of Viola Desmond
• Creating pixelated portraits to honour important Canadians from our past
• Learning about Truth & Reconciliation in Canada
• constructing a monument to honour the ongoing work of Truth & Reconciliation
• Researching modern changemakers in Canada
• Creating a non-player character to represent a modern changemaker that has made a difference in our country
• Considering what skills and talents we have that could be used to impact Canada and make a difference
• making a final improvement to our settlements that shows what we want to change in our local or global community

Here are some pieces of student work that showcase some elements of this project. All student work is shared with permission.

Take a tour of one group's project here: 

These screenshots show highlights of the settlement:

These portraits were created by the HCI Grade 6 class. Each team built a portrait and a sign to share information about the significant person they chose.

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Miniota Grade 3/4 Minecraft Communities Project

 I was excited when Miss. Emily Hunter invited me to co-plan a Minecraft EDU project for her Grade 3/4 class! She was working with the social studies theme of communities and the science unit focused on structures and materials, so we decided to focus on an interdisciplinary project that would target the outcomes from these units.   Together, we planned a “build challenge” project that allowed her students to showcase their knowledge in both topics.  Students worked individually or with a partner to create a community in Minecraft.  

To show their understanding of curricular outcomes, students made plans for which biome they’d build in and how that environment would affect their community, students identified how their community would ensure residents basic human rights were met and constructed appropriate amenties based on this planning.  Students also came up with laws/rules to be posted in their Minecraft communities and they determined which materials would be most effective for building their community structures (a link to their science outcomes).  The Grade 3 and 4 students also demonstrated social studies skills from their curriculum through effective communication and collaboration, managing information and using critical and creative thinking skills.   

Here is a snapshot of some of the planning students did before beginning their build challenges in Minecraft. 

Once students had a plan, they were given time to build their communities in Minecraft.  Students used the camera and portfolio to take some screenshots of what they had built and they've agreed to share them here so you can see some of what they've created! 

Digital Posters by Grade 3/4

I had the opportunity to help Ms. Ward's Grade 3/4 class design digital posters to showcase their knowledge.  We started by reviewing some exemplars from other students and we co-constructed criteria for our own posters.  We reviewed some key skills like changing page layout, adding text boxes, adding images, changing fonts/colours and changing backgrounds.  Then, students used Google Slides with images from pixabay.com to create a poster that met the criteria.  

To learn more about designing digital posters and see more student samples, visit this blog post. 

Thank you to these students for sharing their work with us!