Minecraft: Education Edition Lesson Plan

Title

·  Using Minecraft to teach Physics

Introduction/Background

Rube Goldbergs provide a way for students to demonstrate their understanding of Physics concepts in a physical way. SciMaTech teachers and shop teachers for years have allowed for students to be the master builders and use tools of their trade to become architects and structural engineers. Minecraft is another way for students to tap into that creativity when they don’t have access to a craft space or wood working tools.

World Required

·  Creative world with Redstone

Age Group(s)

·  Grade 9-12

Subject Area(s)

·  Social Studies

·  Physics

·  Engineering

Skill(s) Developed

·  Critical Thinking

·  Spatial learning and simulating physics principles

·  Communication

Learning Objective(s)

·  Demonstrate a physics concept in Minecraft

Lesson Description

·  Mini-Lesson (whole class): Building an elaborate Rube Goldberg is helpful in demonstrating physics concepts like gravity, but the initial rate of a ball falling down a ramp can easily simulate this principle.

·  How do you know how far an object will fall?

·  What if you want to make it go farther?

Try building a simple ramp for a rolling object.

·  If you release the ball, how far will it go?

·  How can you determine the distance traveled inside Minecraft?

This should be a formula: d=rate/time where the distance would be the length of the blocks traveled. The rate would be calculated by using a phone or the clock on the computer to determine how long the ball took to reach the bottom. From here students can determine a rate as he variable in the equation.

·  Cooperative group activity choices:

Teams should decide on other physics applications that could be used within Minecraft.

·  Option One: Student can build a model of their Minecraft ramp to scale in real life.

·  Option Two: Students can build an elaborate Rube Goldberg in Minecraft using more features like waterfalls to power their systems, or turning off water sources, Teachers would first insist on a draft drawing and then have students design their work in Minecraft.

Evidence of Learning:

·  Students will build the initial ramp in Minecraft. They will add a sign to their ramp to demonstrate the rate of how the ball traveled and even use the sign to show their work.

Supporting Files

·  A prebuilt ramp and world here as a demo.

Extension

·  Students could take the imagined, more elaborate Minecraft Rube Goldberg and build them as larger projects.

·  Students could also use Redstone to demonstrate physics concepts in Minecraft that do not apply: how would you have to adjust Minecraft blocks to show gravity?