Our Lessons
Over the course of the semester, Pixel Pushers developed a series of proof-of-concep
Contour Lines
Contour lines are an incredible difficult concept to grasp, especially considering the conventional representation of a three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional piece of paper. This guided lesson takes advantages of Minecraft’s terrain capabilities and empowers students to trace contour lines along elevation changes on an island.
Contour Lines Pre-Lesson Documentation
Contour Lines World Files (including iterations)
Roman Villa
This is a guided exploration lesson intended to act as a three-dimensional model of Roman architecture, allowing students to walk through representations of key Roman structures: road, bridge, aqueduct, and villa.
Roman Architecture Pre-Lesson Documentation
Roman Villa World Files
Minecart Relay Race
This lesson is a competitive relay race within a classroom split up into teams of four. Students must answer questions correctly and quickly in order to pass a “baton” (aka a minecart) between each other to reach the goal before an opposing team does.
Minecart Relay Race Postmortem
Minecart Relay Race World Files
Scientific Method
This was an early attempt at creating abstracted lessons within Minecraft. This is a guided lesson which introduces the scientific method and poses ways to answer questions about the Minecraft world from within the world. It was tested with teachers with limited success, and was ultimately not formally tested with students because we felt that it did not have the infrastructure for a classroom setting.
Spatial Reasoning
This lesson introduces block counting within a 3D environment to students. They progress through rooms with simple shapes and must answer questions from our Quiz Block to pass to the next room. Students must navigate spatially around the shapes and make assumptions about block counts based on obscured or hidden blocks.
(This lesson also served as a technical test of our quiz block, so the world files are incompatible with Minecraft or MinecraftEdu.)
Statistics Lesson (Mushroom Challenge)
This lesson introduces statistical concepts to students, such as histrograms as data visualization and statistical terms such as mean or outlier. Students engage with a short activity to collect as many mushrooms as they can, and then as a class they collectively construct a histogram to visualize the class data.
Statistics Lesson Plan
Statistics Lesson Postmortem
Statistics Lesson World Files
Tower Challenge
This is an activity to teach soft skills such as cooperation and communication. The students will be split into four teams and will be tasked with building the tallest climbable structure as possible within the time limit. They will be rated on the size and height of their structures, how well they worked together, and the aesthetic of their structures.
Tower Challenge Pre-lesson Documentation
Tower Challenge Postmortem
Tower Challenge World Files
Pixel Pushers Project Postmortem
A comprehensive document detailing all of the major aspects of our project: what went well (and what didn’t), our process, and all of our research.