World War I Lesson 1 of 5

Student Activities

Lesson 1 of 5

Students begin by making a list in a notebook, journal, or document of all the things they already know about World War I. For many students, this list will be fairly short. Explain to students that the first thing they get to do is to observe the Minecraft world and make a list of their observations. They should write down what they see as well as questions they have about World War I based on their observations. For this purpose, you may choose to scaffold the lesson by providing a notes template or by encouraging students to use a graphic organizer.

It might be helpful to have students turn on game coordinates so they can tell where they are in the toybox. To do this, press escape from inside the game. Then choose Settings, stay in Game settings, and scroll down to Show coordinates.

Students enter the Minecraft: Education Edition world and are greeted by NPC President Woodrow Wilson. Students should return to NPC Wilson after this lesson, as his dialogue box contains links to the other lesson starting points: morse code, aviation, and trench warfare.

NPC Wilson says, "In this toybox you can observe pieces of the first great war. I was opposed to entering the war but finally relented in 1917. Make notes on what you see and write questions you go along. Remember, we should always strive for peace!"

Students should navigate the world to make observations and find clues to answer their own questions as well as core questions you have posed. Post these core questions on the board, in a class LMS, or other means for students to reference.

Core questions:

• What started World War I?
• Who was involved in World War I?
• What was the final resolution that ended the war?
• How was this war different than any wars before it?

Give students access to a Padlet or other collaborative brainstorming tool. Ask students to add their questions to the Padlet. Students can use the commenting and organization tools in Padlet to categorize their responses as well as dialogue with others.

Then distribute or assign Padlet questions to individual students or student pairs. Students need to find the answers to their assigned questions and post them back to the class Padlet with links to their references included.

Give students time to review the responses to the Padlet questions and the reference materials that have been posted.

Direct students to script a 90-second response to the question, "What started World War I, which countries were involved, and how was it resolved?" Each student should post his/her response to the FlipGrid topic as a video response.