These kids built a Minecraft historical fort in class!

You love playing Minecraft at home on your computer, right? Now, imagine playing it in class! A group of Grade 4 kids at École Julie-Riel in Winnipeg got to do just that as part of their class project about Manitoba history. Their teacher Fabrice Siaux had them to build their own virtual fort based on Fort Rouge, an ancient fort that was built way back in 1738 for the province’s first explorer, La Vérendrye.



Photos courtesy of La Compagnie de La Vérendrye.

Building Fort Rouge pixel by pixel in cyberspace would be quite a big task so the class broke into small groups to work on pieces of the fort like the outer wall, the soldiers’ house and the chief’s house. Starting with nothing but a blank canvas, the students created their digital version of the fort. Though the project is now over the kids keep asking to go back and explore the virtual fort that they helped build.



Photos courtesy of La Compagnie de La Vérendrye.

This isn’t the first time Mr. Siaux used Minecraft to help him teach! His last year’s class were studying animals and he had them use Minecraft to build habitats (places where they live) for their animals. He noticed how much the students liked the project and decided to use it again this year. How cool is it to play video games in class?



Photos courtesy of La Compagnie de La Vérendrye.