UNESCO project is helping students rebuild historical structures damaged in conflict using Minecraft

In the same vein as Ubisoft offering up Assassin’s Creed Unity to help rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral, Minecraft is being used in a special project by UNESCO. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) created a project for students and teachers around the world to recreate historical sites located throughout Syria and Iraq using Minecraft. Here’s a video look at what UNESCO hopes to achieve with History Blocks.

As noted on its website, History Blocks hopes to allow teachers and students to learn and work together to recreate historical sites destroyed by war.

“The History Blocks project is an answer to the hundreds of historical monuments destroyed in war zones. With it, teachers can work together with their students to rebuild, restore and preserve the World Heritage sites that have been brought down by the conflicts.”

Minecraft Education tweeted about the UNESCO project and how it helps students in the Middle East learn about their cultural heritage through these sacred structures that were destroyed in war.

At the moment, History Blocks is being used in lesson plans in classrooms in more than 30 countries. For teachers interested in using these lessons in their classrooms, UNESCO has the History Blocks lesson plan available for download via Dropbox.