Technology changes every single year. What we thought was impressive in 2006, looks archaic in 2016. New technology has a way to make us take for granted some of the breakthroughs that came before.

During the Civil War, Mathew Brady used pictures to tell a story and teach readers the scope of what was happening places like Sharpsburg, MD and Gettysburg, PA. The pictures were shocking and showed the immense scale of the damage caused by the war. These pictures were rare at the time, and offered a new look into faraway places. As the camera became more widely available, people began to see pictures of lands and objects they could have only imagined before. The Pyramids of Giza would be an example of this.

As the internet rose in the 90s and the 2000s, these pictures were spread all over the internet. They became common and were taken for granted. The magnificence of the achievements of the Egyptians becomes lost when viewed only through two-dimensional images.

To counter this, I propose to create a dynamic learning environment similar to the ones outlined in A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (2011) by Douglass Thomas and John Seely Brown. I want to let the students build the pyramids themselves. Obviously, I can not take my students to a quarry to cut the stone and somehow slowly transport it to a large empty field to build a pyramid over the course of 30 years. Instead, I will use the 21st century technologies my students already use and understand.

To accomplish this, I will use Minecraft: Education Edition to allow the students build replicas of the pyramids without breaking their backs at the quarry. I am hoping to allow them to experience the grandiosity of these pyramids and the difficult task to make them. To do so I have devised this lesson plan.

I was asked by my partner how I planned to control the students as they do this. My response is that the old MinecraftEdu allowed teachers to control exactly what tools my students can use, what they can and cannot do to other structures, and where they can go. The new edition will be very similar to this and allow me to control their access for educational purposes.

Using these methods and tools, I very much hope to open their eyes to the last remaining place from the original 7 Wonders of the World.