Kids and Bees Build Challenge

* Click here to see the winners of the 2021 Build Challenge *

While we are excited to gather together, in the future, for the American Beekeeping Federation Annual Convention’s “Kids and Bees Event” - we are currently turning challenges into opportunities by partnering up with our friends at MINECRAFT: EDUCATION EDITION.

This year’s event will be an adventure in creating habitat for our bees, virtually, using our “Build with Bees!” game.

Students will be challenged to work collaboratively in groups to design either a bee-friendly garden or farm.

Submissions will be judged by a panel of experts, and winners will receive cool prizes and a video chat with the real-life version of the NPC “Bee Girl” from the “Build with Bees!” game, Kids and Bees Director, Sarah Red-Laird.

Challenge One

Build a Bee-Friendly Farm

Objective: Bees are a critical part of many ecosystems, including our farms!  Crops rely on bee pollination to grow and produce our food and fiber.  You can thank bees for summer favorites like strawberries and cherries, but did you know that bees also pollinate almonds and cotton?  Our bees need a healthy landscape in order to thrive and pollinate.  Your challenge is to use agriculture to support, instead of diminish bee populations!        

Extensions: 

- Watch “Minecraft Kids and Bees: Challenges” to learn about the challenges that our bees face.

- Watch “This Bee Gets Punched by Flowers For Your Ice Cream” This four-minute video details the interrelationship between bees, clover, cows, and ice cream. 

- Download the “The Beauty of Pollination Worksheet” and fill it out while you watch the video “The Beauty of Pollination.”  This four-minute video shows beautiful footage of a wide variety of pollinators, including bees, hummingbirds, bats, and butterflies. It contains no dialogue.

- Watch What is Regenerative Agriculture? This four minute video moves quickly, so you might want to watch it twice. After the video, make a list some of the ways that farmers can practice regenerative agriculture.

- Inside the “Build with Bees!” game, travel to the farm.  Bee Girl will guide you there.  Once you are there, go meet Poppy for a demonstration of a bee friendly farm. While they are there, read the blackboards near the demo farm. 

- When you feel like you understand what makes a farm “bee friendly” and “regenerative,” walk or fly over to the empty farm field behind the demo farm.   There, talk to Caesar and Thurgood about farming, read all of the black boards for more information, and then get busy making your own bee-friendly farm!  

- Your challenge is to utilize the whole space within the fence to build a bee-friendly farm!  

- Choose a student, or students, from your team to use Flipgrid, or another screencast tool of your choice, to record a guided video tour of your world.  

- Tell us your team name and tell us what you have done to ensure your farm is “bee-friendly.”   (don’t tell us your name, or show your face on camera).  Here is an example from a previous build challenge.  

- Submit it to us by 10:00am PST on January 29 by using (THIS GOOGLE FORM) 

- Team leaders!  Use the Build with Bees! Pollination and Bee-Friendly Farming lessons to support your students.  

- BONUS: Tell us what you’ll do IRL to support bee-friendly farming!  

Challenge Two

Build a Native Bee Habitat 

Objective: Honey bees in their white boxy hives aren’t the only kinds of bees. There are more than 20,000 different bee species in the world, and 4,000 in North America alone!  These bees also help to pollinate our food, and are important pollinators of food for wildlife.  Native bees pollinate berries that feed everything from songbirds to grizzly bears!  Your challenge is to learn about sweat bees, mason bees, and bumble bees, then build a landscape that has plenty of habitat to meet their needs throughout all of their life stages.

Extensions: 

- Watch “Minecraft Kids and Bees: Challenges” to learn about the challenges that our bees face.

- Watch “Minecraft Kids and Bees: Habitat” to learn all about native bee habitat. 

- Print out a copy of the “Bee Nests: Comparing Adaptations” worksheet and then use it to take notes while you explore these photos and videos of tunnel nesting bees, cavity nesting bees, and ground nesting bees HERE.  

- Inside the “Build with Bees!” game, travel to “Beetopia.”  Bee Girl will guide you there.  Once you are there, walk through the mason bee, bumble bee, and sweat bee gardens and learn about these bees and their habitat from the blackboards in each garden.  Grab a notepad and camera at the entrance, if you would like to take notes. 

- When you feel like you understand what makes a good habitat for our native bees, get to work!   Choose one of the three empty garden spaces adjacent to the bee gardens and build a native bee habitat.  

- Your challenge is to utilize the whole space within the fence to build a native bee habitat!  

- Choose one student from your team to use Flipgrid, or another screencast tool of your choice, to record a guided video tour of your world.  

- Tell us your team name and tell us what you have done to ensure your landscape is a haven for native bees (don’t tell us your name, or show your face on camera).  Here is an example from a previous build challenge.    

- Submit it to us by 10:00am PST on January 29 by using (THIS GOOGLE FORM) 

- Team leaders!  Use the Build with Bees! Bumble Buzz, Habitat, and Bee Nests lessons to support your students.  

- BONUS: Tell us what you’ll do IRL to support native bee habitat!   

FAQ

Why would I enroll my students in this challenge? To promote creativity, collaboration, and problem solving while giving students a way to stay connected in a game-based learning environment they love and meet the remote learning needs of educators.

Can anyone with a MINCRAFT license play? No, only those with a MINECRAFT: EDUCTION EDITION license. This is a program for teachers and their students. Many school districts have M:EE licenses for their teachers and students. You can check here to see if you have an account. If you are not sure if you have an account, or a license, please check with your district’s IT department.

Can anyone with a MINECRAFT: EDUCATION EDITION license play? No, your group must have a “Team Leader” - an educator, instructor, advisor and/or other leader 18 years of age or older for an educational institution or club. Only groups who are registered by their Team Leader are eligible to enter.

When is the challenge? Registration is open from now until midnight (PST) on January 28th. The kickoff workshop is on January 8th at 10am PST, and students can build and submit their challenges from January 8th until January 29th at 10am PST.

What size can my group be? Between 1 and 8 students (yes, you can be a student group of one).

What grades is the challenge for? We have three categories - grades 2-3, 4-5, and 6-7th. A prize will be awarded to the winner of each category. This build challenge is for kids, team leaders are not to help with the build. Projects built by adults will be disqualified.

Why do you need my address when I register? So we can ship you prizes, if your team wins!

Can the team leader help in the build? No, this is only for kids.

Where can I find the “Build with Bees!” world? You can download the world here.

Is there a way to prep for the challenge before the official guidelines are announced? Yes! We recommend getting to know the “Build with Bees!” world by using the lesson plans and teachers guides to explore “Beetopia” and “The Farm.”

As a student, how do I participate? Share this information with your teacher/educator/parent/guardian so they can register your team and submit your project!

Does the team lead have to be a teacher? The team lead does not have to be a teacher. The team lead must be 18 or older, and can be a parent, educator, or guardian.

Is this challenge only for the US? No! Anywhere Minecraft: EE is available (in over 115 countries) your students may participate!

Do we need to submit our video in English? While Build with Bees! is available in Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Turkish - our judges only speak English and Spanish. Please submit your video in English or Spanish, have the team leader translate for your students in the video, or submit with English subtitles.

Do I have to use Minecraft: Education Edition or can I build on Bedrock/Java? Submissions must be built in the Minecraft: Education Edition Build with Bees! world. You can check if you have access to Minecraft: Education Edition here and learn more about the trial for eligible users here.

Can multiple teams register from my school? Yes! Multiple teams can register from the same school. And team leaders may register multiple teams. However, we will only accept one entry per unique student team, with each team member only serving as a member of one team.

Where Exactly can I sign up? To sign up, please have your Team Lead register at https://buildchallenge2021.eventbrite.com If you’re under 18, you’ll need a parent, teacher or guardian to register. Once you register, you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to submit.

How long can my video be? Between 5-15 minutes.

How do I know if my team has won? We will send an email announcement to all team leaders on February 5th, as well as posting an announcement on this page.

But wait! I still have more questions! No problem, check out the M:EE Community Hub: https://educommunity.minecraft.net/hc/en-us