45 schools participate in first-annual Surrey Schools Minecraft challenge

One of the winning builds, a digital recreation of Cloverdale Traditional Elementary.

It’s not often that students are tasked with building a school from the ground up, and even less often that they’re asked to construct more than 120 schools. But that’s exactly what took place as part of the first-annual Surrey Schools Minecraft Challenge.

With more than 1,300 students from 45 schools participating on 122 teams, students from Grades 1-10 all got in on the action, re-creating their own schools using Minecraft: Education Edition.

The challenge was the brainchild of Surrey Schools helping teacher Gareth Poon, who has helped facilitate and spread the word about Minecraft: Education Edition throughout the district over the past few years, along with teachers Curtis Wiebe, Lindsay Higgs and Scott Smith.

“It’s really picked up during the pandemic,” explained Poon. “With remote learning, teachers and students began exploring it a lot more.”

The exterior or Johnston Heights Secondary, as told through Minecraft.The education edition of Minecraft is a specialized version of the popular game, designed specifically for use in an educational setting. Enhancements include the addition of the periodic table and elements to allow students to explore and experiment with chemicals, a code-building mode so students and educators can learn about coding in-game, and a classroom mode for educators to oversee their class and set specific parameters on what that day’s ‘build session’ will entail.

“There are also numeracy connections, visualizations of volume, and even the ability for students to write their own book using a quill and book tool,” explained Poon.

For the inaugural district challenge, students were asked to re-create their schools as accurately as possible using in-game materials.

“It was a great experience, and students, and teachers were really excited to participate,” said Poon. “It brought a lot of classes together and pushed them to try something new.”

Not only did the challenge allow students to think about architecture, design and engineering, but it also translated to real-world exploration for teams that wanted to re-create their school down to the precise square footage.

“A single block in Minecraft is equivalent to one-square meter, and so we had some teams out there with trundle wheels measuring the length of their hallways and size of their classrooms,” said Poon.

There were three categories for this year’s submissions: Primary (K-Grade 3), Intermediate (Grades 4-7) and Secondary (Grades 8-12), with Cloverdale Traditional winning Primary, Crescent Park Elementary taking the top Intermediate spot, and Johnston Heights coming first in Secondary.

“This year’s winners blew us away, they went over and above what was asked of them and included so many details,” said Poon, adding. “For example, the creators from Crescent Park added staff members throughout their build who spoke to us and told us about their school. They also created signs and books explaining their process.” Crescent Park's winning build had a populated school with interactive staff and students that helps guide users around the school.

As for next year, Poon said that preliminary ideas being considered for the 2023 challenge include the feasibility of a live-build challenge where participants gather in one place to complete a challenge within a set timeframe.

In the meantime, Minecraft owner Microsoft continues to expand the Education Edition with regular updates and curated lesson plans. The latest updates include an Earth Day challenge, the launch of a ‘League of Literacy’ lesson plan and a world designed to teach young learners about digital identity and online safety. Other lessons include a 1:1 recreation of the International Space Station, the geography, culture and architecture of ancient Egypt and a chemistry unit.

Minecraft Education Edition is available on Mac, PC and iPads devices and is free for Surrey Schools staff and students. To download, go to education.minecraft.net/download.

To see the winning submissions from this year’s Minecraft challenge, please click here. (You will need to have Minecraft: Education Edition installed to view the builds).