Code 2 Create: Gold Rush

Teams compete in build battles that center around coding skills, 3D design and computational thinking. 3D print builds with the in-built structure block.

Open in Minecraft

Submitted by: Minecraft Education

Updated: April 15, 2025

Learning objectives

In this lesson students will use pre-agreed success criteria (given by the teacher, or by the class) to:

- Develop skills in visualization and 3D Thinking.

- Develop an understanding of the skills required to work effectively as part of a team.

- Learn to use success criteria for peer assessment.

- Reflect upon performance and decisions for improvement.

- Learn to use success criteria for peer assessment.

- Apply coding skills in a team-based an assessment scenario.

  • Through discussion, reflection and other scaffolding approaches out-of-game, the role of the educator is essential in facilitating the development of effective skills for collaboration, peer assessment and reflection. Consider having students create their own Professional Play journal in which to develop their skills in self-evaluation and reflection.
  • Please refer to the Esports Educator framework for additional information and resources to prepare your teaching experience.

  • What are the features of a highly effective team?
  • How do successful teams communicate with each other?
  • How do successful teams plan and develop strategy together?
  • How do teams evaluate their performance?
  • What is reflection and how can it help individuals and teams evaluate and improve?

  1. Propose an object for students to build. This world is based on the theme of the Wild West and the Gold Rush, so invite students to offer themed suggestions, or choose an object suitable to the skill level of the class.
  2. If you wish to spend some time focusing on developing 3D thinking skills, provide teams with a 2D image of a geometric shape, and challenge them to build it in the 3D game environment.  You can also reverse engineer this process and invite teams to build 3D shapes in-game and have the whole class draw them in 2D.
  3. Before beginning the game, invite students to consider how they will evaluate the builds. Setting clear criteria at the outset is important, since the winner will be decided by student spectators.
  4. Identify teams.  We recommend between 4-6 players per team.   
  5. During the build battle, you can invite spectating students to encourage the teams.  Alternatively, you can invite student groups to take on other roles such as shoutcaster, press & media, team coaches, game-play analysts etc.
  6. After the battle, students can vote for the winning team by standing on the allocated voting platforms.  They will have limited time to make up their minds, so ensure they are familiar with the criteria
  7. Make some time for students to reflect on their performance.  Scaffold this activity by providing students with stimulus questions for their Professional Play journal.
  8. Invite students to use their reflections on performance to set goals for their next team-play.

 

  • Developing skills in Collaboration Students will create a Professional Play Journal to accompany their learning journey.
  • They will reflect upon and practice the skills required to perform as part of a successful team.
  • Developing Social & Emotional Skills Students will develop Social & Emotional learning skills, as they come to identify their own strengths in a team, as well as growing in their awareness of others’ abilities and needs.
  • Developing skills in Self-Directed Learning Students will contribute to developing assessment criteria as well as using it for peer assessment, growing their confidence in giving and receiving feedback, understanding connections between learning goals and assessment, and shaping perspectives towards failure and resilience.

 

Esports Educator Framework & Rubric
This document serves as additional information and resources to prepare your teaching experience.
Minecraft Esports Playlist
This playlist of videos provides overviews of game mechanics and strategies for several Make and Model and Creative Clash challenges.

Skills

  • Citizenship
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Creativity
  • Critical thinking
  • Project Based Learning

Estimated time

45 min

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