We’ll be live-streaming a game on Friday, Feb 21, 2020, starting around 7:30 am on Mr. Gonzalez’s Twitch account. Tune in if you can, otherwise we’ll share the broadcast on Mr. G’s Youtube Channel.
[Note: Click on any image to see it full size.] Within the red circle in the above map is an area of Washington State known as the Olympic Peninsula. In that peninsula lies a small, rural town named Chimacum where I teach 6th grade STEM in the Chimacum School District.
There’s a close-up view of Chimacum, WA above. Our district, pre-K to 12, has about 836 students. Not the smallest of school districts but pretty small. Our grade levels range from in the 40s to the 60s with our 6th grade having 67 students. So what does Chimacum, WA have in common with the town of Guildford in Surrey, UK? Minecraft for one.
It’s Minecraft, through esports, that is bringing kids from Surrey, UK, together with kids from Chimacum, WA, to play together. If you are not familiar with eSports or eSports in education, read the following article: Esports Programs Start to Pop Up in K–12 Schools
So on Friday, February 21, at 7:30 am PST, students from Chimacum Elementary School’s 6th grade will log in to their school-issued Minecraft accounts to join games created by and shared from Guildford in Surrey. Some parents and cub scout leaders in Guildford run a non-profit club for kids to play Minecraft called Club Minecraft (@ClubMinecraftUK).
You might be wondering, how did Chimacum kids set up a Minecraft gaming session with kids in Surrey, England? It was actually quite opportune for us in Chimacum because we are very new to this whole eSports thing and especially playing with other kids in other schools. While there are lots of high schools playing competitive video games against other schools, like physical sports games, and while there are also lots of middle schools playing competitive video games against other middle schools, Chimacum Schools have just begun offering esports to its students. And by just begun I mean as of early February of this year (just a couple of weeks ago from the writing of this post!); esports in Chimacum is in its infancy! My next post will detail how I got started with all this stuff but for this post let me fast forward to how having my 6th graders play Minecraft from 7:30 to 8:30 in the morning makes it just about impossible to find other schools to play with. Most school esports programs run like physical sports, after school, so it’s impossible to find anyone to play with in the morning. Impossible that is unless you find a Minecraft Club where kids are leaving school right at the same time we are meeting to play!
You see, Surrey, England is on Greenwich Mean Time, exactly 8 hours ahead of Chimacum in the Pacific Standard Time zone. So as the English kids are getting out of school at 3:30 pm their GMT, American kids are coming to our morning club at 7:30 am PST! Club Minecraft was gracious enough to play with us even though they are preparing for a big game event on the 29th so we are grateful for the chance to get to play with other kids. On their Youtube channel, they have a 2017video showing what types of Minecraft games they host on their server:
We are very excited to get to share our love of gaming and our love of playing Minecraft with kids all the way in England! I’ll post a video of our game here after Friday so stay tuned. (Here’s a video of our time together!)
