What's going on everyone?
Fortnite came out back in 2017 and it literally took the world by storm. What originally started out as a mildly popular tower defense game transitioned into a battle royal game that became one of the most played games in the world. For those unfamiliar, a battle royal is a somewhat new genre of online video game where a set number of people are dropped on a map (in Fortnite's case an island), and fight to the death; last one standing wins. What sets Fortnite apart from its contemporaries was its unique building mechanics. The game is a shooter at its core, but each player can also harvest materials and construct buildings as a form of travel or defense. The game is also free to play. The game's fun and unique mechanics, in combination with being free and available on most devices, sets it up to be one of the most popular games ever made.
Fast forward a year and Epic Games releases a new mode called Fornite Creative. It is within this mode that students can apply History, Math, Science, and English Language Arts skills while they play and create. You can find my lesson plan for Fornite Creative here.
"Fortnite Creative provides a sandbox environment where students can create visually stunning interactive worlds that demonstrate their understanding of subject area learning objectives. A sandbox game is essentially an open platform that allows for the creation of the environment using materials and tools within the game. It can be thought of as virtual LEGO, but thanks to the possibilities afforded by technology, functions in the game world can be automated and creators can build in a narrative to enhance the learning. Fortnite Creative is available via cross-platform play. This means that students can work on their creative island on any device with Fortnite installed. This also provides great flexibility for collaboration as students can work in or outside of school. Fortnite automatically includes access to the Creative game mode, which allows the player to create and save several different islands. Creating a new island is similar to creating a new document. It is a blank slate for you to create, edit, save, and share your creations." - Teaching With Fortnite Creative
In Fortnite Creative, you get to create your own island. Creating a new island is similar to creating a new document. It is a blank slate for you to create, edit, save, and share your creations. There are a number of different islands you can choose from. Think about the climate of the place you want to create and choose from there!
There are a million different activities one can utilize with Fortnite Creative. For this lesson in particular, students will be creating a virtual diorama. What they create is really up to them depending on the content in your class. They can create Viking villages, or Japanese temples if you are teaching about ancient civilizations. Maybe they create a farm if you are teaching about agriculture. One can even create a fairytale castle for an English Language Arts class. There is so much flexibility that you are pretty much guaranteed to have each and every student come up with something unique.
I usually provide detailed handouts whenever I share these activities however, I can't really do that here because the way in which you and your students engage with Fortnite Creative might be completely different from the way my students explored this mode. So instead of providing detailed handouts, I instead put together a brief lesson plan with an attached student guide that breaks down the general controls and mechanics of the game. The students can refer to it as needed to get started or they can ignore it entirely. Some of your students are probably already familiar with the game and may not need it.
I personally teach United States History and plan on having my students use the game to create virtual dioramas based on an aspect of New York City that they have studied over the course of a unit.
The topics we personally covered in my class during this unit were
Displacement of the Lenape Native Americans
Creation of The Manhattan Grid
Tenement Housing
Seneca Village
The Harlem Renaissance
Urban Renewal
Gentrification
They might create a virtual Seneca Village, a prominent middle class African American village from the 1800s that was destroyed in order to create Central Park. They can create a tenement housing block where immigrants were forced to live upon migrating to New York City. They could even create a demonstration of how the process of urban renewal can dramatically alter the landscape of urban environments. They will then provide a virtual tour through their diorama to their classmates. The beauty of Fortnite Creative is that each student is bound to come up with something unique. I also like to find ways of assessing my students other than essay writing. English Language Arts and Social Studies classes often fall into the trap of assigning essay after essay, but it is important to give our students other opportunities of success. It's a project unlike anything I have done before myself, but I am eagerly anticipating what my students come up with.
Fortnite is not the only game that provides an opportunity to create- Minecraft has been around for years now and Roblox has also exploded in popularity recently. If you can find ways to utilize those games as an outlet for students to express themselves and present information, then you definitely should. The reason I am personally using Fortnite Creative is because I play the game a lot myself and because the game utilizes a lot of pre-created structures, called prefabs, from the base game. Prefabs are pre-built structures that can be directly placed inside your island. This will make the building process more accessible as you do not need to create each and every individual piece for the creation of your diorama. You will find entire castles, farmhouses, storefronts, viking ships and so much more already built for you. All you need to do is choose where on your island to place them. All of these structures are pulled from the Battle Royal and Save the Wold versions of the game. Since I am personally familiar with many of the in game locations of Fortnite Battle Royal, I can quickly search for buildings and structures that I am familiar with from the game. Then, I copy and paste them into my island. I don't need to create a building piece by piece. You can build everything from the ground up if you really want to, but using the prefabs speeds up the process and makes the game more accessible overall.
I am also not the only person utilizing Fortnite in my classroom. Epic Games, the developer, has an entire section on their website dedicated to the use of Unreal Engine and Fortnite Creative in classrooms. They even provide full lesson plans! Definitely check out the resources there because there is probably something you can use with your students.
Thanks for reading,
Zack
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