Junior high maths lesson ideas?

[Laurens Derks]

I have been asked to do some maths lessons with 12 & 13 year olds using mine craft. Maths is soooooo not my subject but as the resident IT expert i now need to pull this off!
Any maths gurus here?

[Rick M]

I'm not a maths guru, but there is a MinecraftEdu world folder at http://www.dudeguy.com/mceworlds/ which has a lesson in graphing. Here's the description:

"This is a lesson for younger students in graphing data based on the efficiency of axes in Minecraft. Students will gather wood over several timed rounds using a different tool each time. Tested with adults but not yet in the classroom. Feedback is encouraged!"

I don't have links to world folders, but I've heard of other teachers doing lessons about volume and area. Randall Fujimoto, who posts here, did a workshop where he had people building 'fish tanks' of a certain size and volume. That's one way to go. When my daughter was studying area and volume, she said it'd be neat to have some sort of 'archaeological dig' where you needed to dig out a certain volume of material in a variety of configurations. For example, 24 blocks of material could be 24x1, 6x4, 8x3, 12x2, etc. You don't necessarily need to have them find materials (although that's a possible extension of the lesson), but you can see how building and/or digging can be utilized to explain volume and area?

If you wanted to extend the archaeological idea, maybe you have the students dig in a prepared area (24x24?) and 'archaeological materials' are discovered at various layers down to 12 blocks below the surface. You could talk about the most effective way to dig (who found the most by removing the least blocks), calculate the total number of blocks, tie in a quick description of how archaeologists dig layer by layer...

I'm just thinking off the top of my head. What I imagine is probably a lot of work, and sticking with simple volume, area, and graphing exercises is probably a lot more feasible with limited time to prepare.

[EduElfie]

Hi Laurens, I know I have been lacking in the email area, but I did send you one last night, still happy to chat.

Elfie.

[Michael Harvey]

Hi Laurens,

The wood graph lesson is one of mine; feel free to use it!  I designed it for elementary which means it might not be super challenging, mathematically any way.

Another idea that comes to mind would be to apply the area/volume ideas to a little challenge. This is  steam of consciousness, so feel free to alter or comment.

Start the students off in a blank flat map, just grass everywhere.

Provide the specifications for a house to be built.  (For example, you could say it needs to have: 15x15 foundation, 3 stories, 4 blocks between floor and ceiling, with a door and a 2x2 window on each empty wall - something like that.)  You could put these specifications in a text block so they can refer to it.  Give them time to make calculations about what they need.  Tell them they will get once chance to get everything they need and then switch them to creative mode for 1-2 mins tops.  Then have them attempt to build the house using the materials they got.  Maybe have them stack up unused extra materials for a visual.  The discussion could focus around what they had to consider to get their counts or how mistakes came up.  For example, you can't just add up the area of the four walls, because the corner blocks count double.

On Monday, February 25, 2013 6:50:32 AM UTC-5, Laurens Derks wrote:

[Randall Fujimoto]

Hi Laurens,

It would help to formulate ideas if you provided one or more specific content standards that you are aiming to cover. IMO, Minecraft is a tool that can be used to cover practically any content area, so if you could list a few standards (Common Core or other) that you wish to cover, I'm sure the creative folk here can come up with some possible ideas for you.

--Randall

[Joel Levin]

Another option is to flip this on its head a bit.  You could ask the kids to use their imaginations to design something in Minecraft that demonstrates mathematical concepts.

Just a thought...

~Joel

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[brandon.lee...@gmail.com]

Finally someone is starting to get it.  It seems to me that every teacher that plays Minecraft has the sense and understands that playing Minecraft is intellectually different than other games we may have played.  When I play Minecraft, I can feel that I'm thinking as I do it.  Explicity trying to design awkward "lessons" in Minecraft isn't going to work unless we make sure to include the part of the game that makes it inherently an intellectual game.  I once used square roots, the formula for the circumference of a circle, finding the area of a square in a project of mine, and techniques for estimation.  Why was I motivated to do so?  I wanted to build a really big castle tower.  Intellectual tools are means to fulfill our imagination and to satisfy our curiosity.  Keeping them in that context is eminently important.

 

Well, those are my two cents.

 

 - B. Fitzgerald

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