Sample Size/Sound Conclusions

Student Activities

1. Upon spawning into the world, students will acquire a writeable book from one of the chests. On a journal page, they need to answer the question, "How many Minecraft blocks are contained in a 50x50x50 region?"
2. Once the question is answered, students will teleport to the region they will study. They will make a prediction regarding the composition of the region. They will then take a pickaxe from one of the chests in the region. It should be enchanted with Silk Touch, so blocks will maintain their original form.
3. Students stand at a random spot in the region, and dig straight down. This is usually a Minecraft "no-no," but they will be OK in this instance. After digging down 50 blocks, they will drop into an underground chamber.
4. Have students check their inventories. They should have 50 blocks. If not, they can access one of the trapped chests in this area to take as many glass blocks as it takes to get to 50. The glass will be a stand-in for air.
5. Students will move to one of the teleport stations around the perimeter of the room, which will teleport them to a different region of the map.
6. In this area, first they should interact with the "Helper" NPC, who will give them a camera, give them fly ability, and also eliminate fall damage. Next, students will build adjacent 1x1 towers from each of the materials they collected (e.g. one tower of dirt, one of stone, one of gravel, etc). Use the camera to photograph their plot.
7. Once their plot is complete, they will talk to a "Survey Taker" where they will input their results into a form. The entire class's data can be collected and presented on a circle graph. Students can compare their 50-block sample with the one created from samples from the entire class.