Minecraft Lesson: Circumference and Area
Learning Target: Students will be able to evaluate the area and circumference of circles
Task: Students are to find the Radius, Diameter, Circumference, and Area of circles in the form of circular roofs in Minecraft.
Materials: Students were given a worksheet to write answers and show their work. Students also required a laptop with which to work on.
Time: Students had 40 minutes to complete the task.
Setting: Students are attending a Roofing showroom displaying various Circular roof sizes.
Setup: Minecraft was set in “immutable world,” “adventure mode”, and various settings, as seen below.
A row of Redstone dust was laid down with repeaters to power command blocks to prohibit students from selecting any items from their inventory.
NPCs were placed with word problems for students to interact with.
Result: Students really enjoyed the lesson. The content is related directly to the standards.
Reflection:
The worksheet I made was hastily made, and some mistakes were made. The last moment alteration that improved the worksheet was to increase the brightness of the images while in Microsoft word. Also I should have put the radius before the diameter; several students put the radius in the diameter space and radius in the diameter space.
When In the center of each roof, I placed a gold block with blue blocks going to the circumference, acting as the radius. This caused confusion as students did not know whether to count the golden block as part radius or diameter.
Some students did not have their laptops or were low on power. In addition, some students did not have Minecraft downloaded on their laptops, and the installation process took anywhere from five to thirty minutes. I have six desktops in the room that were all utilized. Some students had to work in pairs.
In the creation of this world, Amulet was a critical component.
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