Highlights from the May Monthly Student Challenge: Student-Designed Space Stations

Last month for our Global Student Build Challenge, we invited students to visit the International Space Station in Minecraft. Students were encouraged to design a new module for the Space Station and describe what hypothetical scientific experiments they would run.

Thank you to everyone who participated! As promised, we’re sharing some of the amazing creations that were posted on social media below. Check out creative students flexing their problem solving skills while investigating farming in space, how to paint without gravity, and if trampoline would work as a form of transport on the space station!

Highlights from the May Global Student Build Challenge

Shared by Grade 5 Educator at the American International School in Cyprus, Minecraft Mentor Pantelis Charalambous (Source: https://twitter.com/Pantelees/status/1129004534842437637)

Our Minecraft campers are creating experiments in the International Space Station this a.m.. How can you bounce on a trampoline in space? How does someone paint without gravity? Lots of thinking in our little room today! @mrsitrt @elemitrt @RkeCoSchools @PlayCraftLearn pic.twitter.com/YZ0Zivup3Y

— Meg Swecker (@mswecker) June 5, 2019

Afterschool is working on creating a new module for the International Space Station. @WeatherstoneES @PlayCraftLearn #MinecraftEdu pic.twitter.com/XHpgvmveJz

— Courtney Cornwright (@CCornwright) May 16, 2019

Minecraft at ISTE 2019

Join us at ISTE in Philadelphia June 23-26! Stop by the Microsoft STEM area to explore the International Space Station in Minecraft: Education Edition, and learn more ways to engage your students across math, coding and science with the Minecraft team. Learn how to find us!

Global Student Build Challenge (May 2019) – A Visit to the International Space Station

Did you know that humans have been living in space for almost 20 years? Minecraft: Education Edition is celebrating this historic anniversary with a new International Space Station world for you to explore! The International Space Station has been continuously occupied since November 2000, and orbits Earth every 90 minutes. The six-person crew lives and works in the solar-powered station, which offers sleeping quarters, bathrooms, a gym and a 360-degree view bay window to look down to Earth. Researchers from 103 countries have conducted thousands of experiments on the International Space Station, and you are next! Design a new module for the International Space Station and describe what hypothetical scientific experiments you will run.​

Extensions:​

• Go on a scavenger hunt, find and label each of the International Space Station parts and modules then write a description about how each is used​.
• Research facts about the International Space Station using the NASA website and tools like Eyes on the Solar System​.
• Use the Camera, Book & Quill and Boards in Minecraft: Education Edition to document your work.

Copy and paste this link into your browser to start building: minecraftedu://?openlibrary=G009ST4TW6XH

If this Challenge theme resonates with you or the content that you teach, we welcome you to use this Challenge prompt any time of year! Share your classroom creations with us on Pinterest or Twitter via @playcraftlearn and #MinecraftEDU.