About the Extreme Heat Series Build Challenge for Minecraft Education
Games invite players to consider how they would respond to major threats. Games allow players to gain a deeper knowledge and provide an accessible entry point to developing new climate resilience skills.
The Minecraft Extreme Heat Series can teach students about extreme heat, and the Build Challenge is an exciting way to test that knowledge.
Teachers around the world can bring this challenge into their classrooms to help their students dive deeper and apply their newfound climate resilience knowledge and skills.
Students have the opportunity to redesign or retrofit an urban area to make it cooler. The seasonal challenge is a hands-on way for students to explore the solutions they encountered and consider what could work in their own communities.
What is a Minecraft Build?
Minecraft is a virtual game where everything is made up of blocks. Players can build with blocks to reshape the world or build fantastical creatures—even a Heat Dragon!
Through our collaboration with Minecraft Education and Rewrite Edu, students can explore the digital worlds in Heat Wave Survival to understand the real-world climate crisis.
The Build Challenge gives students the opportunity to apply their climate resilience learnings and build their own creation in the Minecraft world!
Game-based learning with the Build Challenge
About the challenge
Arsht-Rock designed this seasonal challenge to give students a chance to apply the skills they learn after completing Heat Wave Survival.
The Build Challenge allows students to create their own climate resilient world. They can engage in the virtual space to share their vision for a cooler, climate safe future.
The Minecraft Build Challenge is open to students between the ages of 12 and 18. For each challenge cycle, one grand winner will be selected and their build will be featured on Arsht-Rock’s website.
The current challenge
Submissions close July 9, 2024
Winners announced August 14, 2024
Heat Season is when people are at the highest risk of heat exhaustion and heat stroke due to sustained high temperatures. While extreme heat during the day is dangerous, high temperatures indoors and overnight can make many more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. As the impacts of climate change accelerate, heat season often starts earlier and lasts longer.
For this build challenge, students must:
- Construct a community cooling center that offers free cooling centers to an urban neighborhood
- Choose at least two underserved populations who might be at higher risk of heat exhaustion or heat stroke
- Illustrate and describe how you adapted your build with these populations in mind. How does it help keep them healthy and safe?
This build challenge is open to submissions from both individuals and teams. A parent, guardian, or educator must complete the submission form.
Advancing climate resilience in the classroom
The Minecraft Extreme Heat Series Build Challenge is a program designed for classrooms. Through an expert-informed curriculum and engaging games, the Extreme Heat Series gives students the skills they need to keep themselves and their communities cool and protected from the impacts of extreme heat. The challenge is the next step. Students can design or retrofit urban spaces to keep them cool with approaches like nature-based solutions or cool roofs, and test their newfound climate resilience knowledge!
The Extreme Heat Series Build Challenge is a program that challenges students to design climate solutions in Minecraft Education and envision how cities can build a cooler future. Learn how you can bring this experience to your classroom.
In Minecraft: Heat Wave Survival, players learn how to protect their village from the notorious Heat Dragon. Students can explore the virtual worlds and then apply their knowledge to create better builds.
