Scott’s Discovery Hut
Minecraft World

**Introducing Scott’s Discovery Hut Minecraft World, the latest addition to our Inspiring Explorers Education™ programme.**

Designed as an immersive learning activity for entire classes to experience together, students begin their journey aboard Scott’s ship, the RRS Discovery, before venturing ashore to meet early explorers and discover what life was like on the Ice. Working collaboratively in small groups, they’re challenged to complete three engaging tasks: searching for artefacts inside the historic hut, building kennels for the expedition’s huskies, and their own Antarctic hut with everything they would need to live in and explore this harsh environment. They can even export a 3D model of the hut they build to show their friends.

This fantastic new education resource will be delivered alongside the Trust’s cutting-edge virtual reality experience of Scott’s Discovery Hut, which has already transported thousands of people both in New Zealand and around the world, to a world of Antarctic exploration.

The Trust will be bringing this experience to Year 7 and 8 classrooms across Aotearoa New Zealand, and it will be accessible worldwide through the Minecraft Education platform from mid-November.

Book our Inspiring Explorers Education™ programme

Let our Education team bring Scott’s Discovery hut programme to your Year 7 and above class

The Trust’s Inspiring Explorers Education™ team travel around New Zealand to bring our Scott’s Discovery hut experiences to year 7 and up students, community groups, public venues, and festivals. If you would like book this experience, fill in the form and our team will be in touch soon. Minecraft is delivered specifically for year 7 and above alongside our Scott’s Discovery Hut Virtual Reality Experience.

BOOK HERE

Scott’s Discovery Hut Minecraft Education Platform

Run our Scott’s Discovery Hut Minecraft World yourself for all ages and years.

From mid-November, Scott’s Discovery Hut Minecraft World will be available for classrooms of all ages and years worldwide to explore beyond our education programme.

Coming Soon!

Scott’s Discovery Hut Virtual Reality Experience

Our Minecraft World runs alongside Scott’s Discovery Hut VR Experience for year 7 and above.

When students aren’t participating in the Minecraft World, they’ll step inside Discovery hut on Ross Island, Antarctica, just as Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton did over a century ago through cutting-edge virtual reality.

Offering exciting interactions, including a ride in the hydrogen balloon the expedition launched, feeding huskies, helping a sledging party, and getting up close to the Discovery ship, this experience shares the stories behind this unique shelter’s place in polar history and the explorers that inhabited it.

Learn more

Partners and Supporters

The Trust is grateful to the following generous supporters including, project sponsor the Greater Christchurch Schools Network, project developer WDekkers Digital, and Antarctic Heritage Trust Inspiring Explorers™ Fund donors.

If you would like to support the touring of this experience, make a donation today or contact us about tour sponsor opportunities:

Click here to donate Sponsorship Opportunities

A Legacy of Antarctic Exploration

On 8 February 1902, the National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition (1901–04) led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott dropped anchor at Winter Quarters Bay in McMurdo Sound. Expedition Junior Surgeon and Zoologist Edward Wilson described it as, “the most perfect little natural harbour imaginable.” Just 200 meters from the ship, Scott’s men built an unassuming square hut on what would become known as Ross Island’s Hut Point Peninsula.

Described by Expedition Physicist Louis Bernacchi as “more adapted as a summer house than a polar hut”, Discovery hut was well-stocked with supplies but very cold. In the end, the men bunked on the ship itself. Instead, the hut was used for important scientific work in fields including zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism. They used it as a repair shop, as a venue for entertainment, and to dry furs and tents after undertaking extensive exploration in the region.

This was the second expedition to winter over on the Antarctic continent, and they would carry out significant exploration and serious scientific research, including:

Scott, Wilson and Sub-Lieutenant Ernest Shackleton achieve a furthest south record of 82º 16’ S on a sledging journey to find out if there was land between the Ross Ice Shelf and the South Pole.
Scott and Shackleton took flights above the Ross Ice Shelf in a hydrogen balloon, with Shackleton capturing the first aerial photographs of Antarctica.
An overland party journeyed across Ross Island, discovering the Emperor penguin rookery at Cape Crozier, and taking the first photograph of an Emperor penguin chick.
Expedition Navigator Lieutenant Albert Armitage led an expedition team that became the first to walk on the Polar Plateau.

A historic image of three explorers dressed in Antarctic survival clothing

Starting the great south journey, Shackleton, Scott and Wilson, 02 November 1902. © R W Skelton photograph, Canterbury Museum.

Men dressed in Antarctic survival clothing, harnessed to sledges.

Men and dogs outside a historic building in Antarctica, after a blizzard. Large ship in the background.

Safe-haven for Every Heroic-era Expedition to Ross Island

Not only did Discovery hut support the exploration goals and scientific achievements of Captain Scott’s first Antarctic expedition, but due to its relative proximity to the South Pole, the hut was utilised by every subsequent expedition from the heroic-era of Antarctic exploration (1895–1922) that visited Ross Island.

The British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition 1907–1909, led by Ernest Shackleton, used the hut as a staging post for their unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole. With supplies dwindling, Shackleton’s team made the agonising decision to turn back just 97 miles short of the Pole.

Scott revisited the hut in 1911, when the British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition 1910–13 used it as a staging post for their attempt at the South Pole. Ultimately, Scott and his polar party reached the Pole but tragically perished on the return journey, just miles from safety.

The Ross Sea Party, members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914–1917 led by Shackleton, used the hut for shelter while laying supply depots for Shackleton’s ambitious but unsuccessful plan to traverse the continent, from the Weddell Sea to Ross Island, via the South Pole. The Ross Sea Party’s work proved to be in vain when Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, sank in the Weddell Sea after getting trapped in sea ice.

Conserving the Legacy

This iconic explorer base has stood for over 120 years and is protected under the Antarctic Treaty. Antarctic Heritage Trust is a world leader in cold-climate conservation and cares for Discovery hut on behalf of the global community.

As part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project, the largest heritage project undertaken in the polar regions, the Trust completed a two-year programme of conservation in 2015 to weatherproof Discovery hut, ensure it is structurally sound and conserve more than 500 artefacts.

The huts the Trust cares for require constant up-keep, so every year the Trust’s expert team carry out a programme of artefact, building, and environmental monitoring and maintenance, including how climate change may be affecting the sites.

A person digging out the snow-filled doorway of a historic building in Antarctica

Trust Conservator Nicola Stewart digs her way into Scott’s 'Discovery' hut in 2006, before Antarctic Heritage Trust carried out major conservation works to save the building. © AHT