Climate Change in Donkey Kong
Lesson Overview
Title: Sustainable Survival: Modeling Resource Management and Human Impact in Minecraft
Subject: Science (Earth and Space Science)
Age Group(s): 14–18
Tags: Minecraft, Earth Science, Resource Management, Sustainability, Human Impact, Engineering Design, Systems Modeling
Description:
In this lesson, students will analyze Minecraft gameplay to understand it as a simulation of human-environmental interaction. They will evaluate how the availability of natural resources influences human activity and assess design solutions for sustainability and resource management.
Lesson Plan
📋 Find the full lesson plan on the companion GameClass lesson — link at the bottom of this page!
Lesson Content
I. Key Teaching Points
- Point 1: Human activity, such as building shelters, is directly dependent on the type and availability of local natural resources.
- Point 2: Developing and managing resources involves a cost-benefit analysis, where choices are made to maximize utility while minimizing effort and material loss.
- Point 3: Technology, from simple tools to complex plans, can be used to manage resources more efficiently and reduce the environmental impact of human activities.
II. Practical Examples
For Teaching Point 1:
The player constructs their house primarily from wood and stone (0:04, 0:34). This choice is not random — it's dictated by the fact that the house is located in a temperate biome rich with forests (geosphere) and exposed stone (biosphere). This directly illustrates how resource availability influences human construction choices.
For Teaching Point 2:
The player uses shears, a specific tool, to collect leaf blocks for decoration (0:11). The benefit is gaining decorative blocks; the cost is the iron and time required to craft the shears. Later, the player crafts a large number of fences (0:58). The benefit is creating a safe balcony railing (1:25), but the cost is the significant amount of wood planks consumed in the crafting process.
For Teaching Point 3:
The crafting table itself is a form of technology that allows the player to turn raw materials (wood planks) into more complex and useful items (sticks, fences) (0:55). However, a key observation is the lack of a sustainability-focused technology or plan — the player clears resources but is not shown replanting saplings. A refined technological solution would be to create a managed tree farm, ensuring a renewable resource supply and minimizing long-term impact on the surrounding forest.
End of Lesson