Black Gold: Hearts, Souls and Mines

In Spring 2015, Darran Park Primary School co-ordinated a project known as “Black Gold: Hearts, Souls and Mines” – a study and appreciation of the industrial heritage of its local area: the Rhondda. This resource sets out the detail of the project to enable other schools to undertake a similar project based on their own local history. The “Black Gold” project was an authority-wide project involving fourteen schools from three clusters in Rhondda Cynon Taff. However, the structure of the project is easily adaptable and therefore suitable for individual schools to use, whether involving collaboration between classes or undertaken by an individual class.

Preparation Phase • Identify a local historical building to be recreated in Minecraft. Ideally, the

building will be a key part of the history of the local area. • If the project is to be collaborative across schools or classes, set up a Hwb+

page specifically for the project. • Provide any necessary training for project staff on Hwb+, OneNote,

Minecraft and/or animation software as required. • “Set the scene” using Twitter, QR codes, e-mail etc. to communicate the

“back story” to the pupils. Black Gold’s back story involved Steve from Minecraft being trapped at Rhondda Heritage Park, requiring the rebuild in Minecraft to enable him to escape through the Minecraft world. This was communicated using photos of a teacher dressed as Steve on location at the Park, together with a blog and video messages.

Collaboration and Research Phase • The pupils undertake initial research on the building and the associated local history – they

could use the Encyclopaedia Britannica tool on Hwb. Pupils can store their research using One Note.

• Pupils share, discuss and peer assess their research through the wiki and discussion tools on the project Hwb+ page. The survey tool could be used if the collection of data is required.

• Pupils undertake a site visit, ensuring they take lots of photographs and video footage to support the recreation process in Minecraft.

• Pupils use the collaborative area and a site plan (if available) to plan and agree the layout, including the precise, measured location of each contributor’s section.

Creation Phase • The pupils work on recreating the historical building in Minecraft. • The pupils write, produce and film a collaborative animation based on their research into the

local history. Black Gold used a commercial animation company to deliver a one-day workshop with each cluster to support the production of the animation, but if the project is being undertaken in a single school or class, you may wish to produce the animation in-house using animation software, such as j2spotlight available through j2e on Hwb.

The “Black Gold: Hearts, Souls and Mines” project can be seen in full detail by visiting the blog: https://jamesprotheroe.wordpress.com . Other links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reVNxS33II0 (Completed project video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQYu_4jSF4 (Black Gold animation)

http://blackgold2015.weebly.com/ (Scene-setting message from “Steve”)