Category: Minecraft for Education

Clontuskert is a Top 20 Winner of the Ireland’s Future Is MINE Project for 2022.

We were invited to DreamSpace in One Microsoft Place today for the Prizegiving from Microsoft and RTÉ.

Feedback from the Judges-
We knew you guys would do incredible things (as always) but you and the class should be really proud of yourselves for placing so highly with the judges scoring 😊

Thanks to Corey and Neeve for a super day. Check out the fun day we had!

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For Ireland’s Future is Mine we have made our school even more sustainable. We already have solar panels on our school. This produces 42% of our school’s electricity. In Minecraft we installed LED lighting all around the school which will save energy and funds. We have recycling, landfill and compost bins everywhere. We have an environmentally friendly sewerage treatment plant. At our school garden we sow vegetables, flowers and have composters and bee hives. This is part of our outdoor classroom. Our school bus is electric and runs on solar energy. We have installed a safe cycle path from the church to the school so that we can start a Cycle Bus for our students. We have electric charging points for teacher and visitor cars.

Our world is built in a flat world. This meant that we needed to code a 4 block height grass tower that we stretched across the whole parish to give us more build options. This meant we could build down as well as up. The other world landscapes would have interfered with what we wanted to build. We used a slash fill command which quickened this build.

Old Clontuskert school was closed but still occupied in 1958. Our modern school opened in 1959. There were two class rooms and two toilets in the school at that time and was also used as a local youth club. There were 120 boys and girls in the school at the time of its opening. In 1970 the school free transport system started but only applied to people two miles from the school.
An extension to the school was built and opened in 1999. Now we have three modern classrooms, two SEN rooms and a large general purpose hall. This year we started a Breakfast and Afterschool Club. We have a huge playing space, games courts and pitches around the school. For the road we used an agent to code so that it would be built faster.

Check out our twin Wind Turbines.
They are taller than the average wind turbines and are vertical axis to generate more electricity so that they supply not only the school but the whole parish with electricity. The extra energy is being sold back into the national grid. The money we earn from this is being donated to charities to help students across the world to receive an education under Sustainable Development Goal 4- Quality Education. The turbines move using 49 Command Blocks.

Welcome to Clontuskert Parish Church
This is our Sustainable church and community pitch with solar panels, charging points, playground, coffee shop, walking track and flower patio. There are wind turbines here too.

Welcome to Clontuskert Pitch:
We have a new modern clubhouse for the community to gather.
We built irrigation pipes under pitch. This both drains the pitch and supplies water to our community allotment gardens which supply vegetables and fruit to each family in the parish.
Wind turbines supply the energy for the lights here.

This is Clontuskert’s Old School:
The old school is in Chapel park near the Church. It was opened in 1836. There is a plaque on the wall that says Clontuskert National School AD 1833. Helena Coen, a great granny of a current 4th class student was the principal of the old school and some of the teachers were Mrs. Eileen Fenton, Mrs. Coen and Mrs. Kitty Bleahen.
There were at least three hedge schools in Clontuskert before they built the school building. This school was built on a ringfort. The people called the school Crossconnell school but the name was changed to Clontuskert National school on September 21st, 1852.
The school started as a mixed school on the 1st of July 1836. There was an old staircase near the door of the old school. There was a stage in it made from old doors.

To rethink how the old school can function for the future we have turned it into a kids museum where the community can gather. Clontuskert’s history is told at the museum with VR and AR experiences. We also have a library underground. We built an aquarium filled with beautiful fish and visitors can learn about the fish here.
There is an attic with large windows to maximise the views of Clontuskert parish. This is our new Clontuskert Observatory. At night the balcony can be used for stargazing. Because Clontuskert is in the country it is the perfect place for astronomy, away from the light pollution in towns and cities.