Touring Mini Melbourne

Mini Melbourne 

Mini Melbourne is a 1 to 1 scale 3D representation of the Melbourne CBD. It is designed as a 3D map that students can move about in to explore and build upon. Interaction in the world is dependent on the tasks set by teachers. The following tasks are designed to encourage students to learn about Melbourne while creating activities to support others to do so. 

NOTE: This lesson is part of a series using the Mini Melbourne world and designed to encompass a wide variety of ages and curriculum learning areas. Other lessons include Revamp Melbourne.  

Research Melbourne 

Before going into the world, get to know a little about modern Melbourne; its history, transport, landmarks and iconic spaces and places. Explore and research further using the Minecraft world, Google Street view combined with research resources.  

Touring Melbourne 

Student groups could work through each of these tasks designed to acquaint them with the city of Melbourne. They could be completed in the order offered here, or groups could be split to choose one of these ways to represent their tour of Melbourne. As a final celebration students could host a “Touring Melbourne” expo showcasing all these completed tasks for the school and/or parents. 

 1. Become the tour guide 

Task students groups with planning a guided (or written, or audio) tour of Melbourne using the Mini Melbourne world.  Who is your tour for; families, school excursions, International visitors? How will they travel; walk, tram or train? 

Make sure they have researched interesting facts and information about their chosen 6 key sites, buildings and spaces they take their tour group through. Start the tour at Flinders St Station as the first landmark. Flinders St Station is centrally located and many landmarks of Melbourne are readily accessible from there. 

Younger students can use the camera and portfolio tool to create and present a written tour with pictures. Or they may record (video or audio) or take the class on the tour with a live walkthrough in-world. 

Older students could place Non-player characters (NPCs) at key sites to convey information about their 6 landmarks and historical facts. They can give factual information and links to resources about each of the chosen landmarks. 

 2. Tell a tourist’s story 

Students write a narrative piece sharing the day of a visitor to Mini Melbourne. Consider:  

· Who are they?  

· Where do they live?  

· What draws them to Melbourne today? 

If their tour started at Flinders Street Station: 

· What does your visitor to Melbourne plan to see?  

· Where do they go?  

· Why do they choose each stop on their visit?  

· Were they happy with their day? 

Students explore in-world and decide on the stops in their adventure and write their story, collecting in-world images of the visitor at landmarks along the way. 

Younger students can create a book to tell the story of this tour, using the camera and portfolio tools to record scenes from the tour.  

Older student might imagine something exciting, funny or dramatic that occurred while on their tour and use images captured in-world to create a graphic novel. Graphic novel or comic making software can be used to create this from the Minecraft captured resources. 

3. Create a scavenger hunt 

A great way for groups to get to know a city could be with a scavenger hunt. Students search the Mini Melbourne streets for iconic buildings or statues and write a summary piece about each interesting find. 

Younger students can place Non-player characters (NPCs) in-world at these key sites to give information and clues. 

Older students might create commands for NPCs to offer rewards to the scavenger hunt players for correctly answering questions about the landmarks. They could create this hunt as a time based game. E.g. “You have 15 minutes to visit each of 6 treasure hunt sites and collect all 6 rewards.” 

4. Create a brochure or tourism web site 

Younger students can take images from Mini Melbourne and research information gained to create a Tour Mini Melbourne Brochure for a specific group; families, school excursions, International visitors. 

Older students might design a web site for Tourism Mini Melbourne from their research and in-world explorations to entice people to want to explore the city.  

Depending on the activities adopted teachers should consider these assessment artefacts and strategies: 

• Rubrics 
• Student observations (group discussions and activity) 
• Presentation to class or school Written compositions