Minecraft

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**Lesson Plans in Minecraft:**
//"Let me tell you a story about three little pigs. The first pig built a house that was 2 metres high by 3 metres wide by 4 metres long. The second little pig wanted a bigger house, so he doubled the dimensions – his house was 4 metres high, by 6 metres wide by 8 metres long. The third little pig wanted to have the biggest house, so he doubled the dimensions again and built a house that was 8 metres high, 12 metres wide and 16 metres long.// //Your task is to calculate the surface area and volume of each of the three houses and work out the ratio of SA:V for each house. Assuming that all the houses were made of the same materials and labour was not included, which house would be the cheapest to build per unit volume?"//
 * 1) Show the YouTube video above to students and ask them to calculate the surface area and volume of the TNT tower. What would happen if the tower was 1 block taller? Two blocks taller? Twice the height? Is there a general rule for calculating the surface area? (SA = 4 x height + 1)
 * 2) Students build their name in Minecraft blocks and calculate the surface area and volume of the blocks in their name. (This may take 1-2 lessons, depending on how familiar students are with the Minecraft environment).
 * 3) Students build a pool or dig a pit in Minecraft and calculate the perimeter. If you double the size of the pool/pit, what happens to the perimeter? Create a table of values showing what happens to the perimeter each time the area is multiplied by 2, 3 or 4.
 * 4) "Increasing the volume with three little pigs" is a lesson I have described on the Technomaths blog. Students can build the pig's houses in Minecraft or with building blocks, or simply sketch them in their books.

**Some more Minecraft Resources:**

 * MinecraftEdu is optimized for educational use and allows offline functionality. Teaching with MinecraftEdu has lots of advice for your first lessons and links to lessons created by other teachers.
 * A lesson on ratio in Minecraft