How to use the heat block in Minecraft: Education Edition

Found in Minecraft's Education and Bedrock Editions, the heat block is a block primarily used to remove things like snow and ice in a certain radius around the block.

Crafted from combining the right materials at a lab table block, heat blocks are a unique block in Minecraft due to the fact that they melt snow and ice like torches but don't give off visible light.

From an educational perspective, heat blocks could be considered similar to real world handwarmers that use chemical reactions to create warming kinetic energy. Technically, the reaction is electrochemical, but Minecraft's chemistry capabilities aren't quite as complex as the ones found in our natural world.

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Minecraft: Creating and using a heat block

Stacked heat blocks in a 3x3 grid, although their warming effects are not seen here as there is no snow or ice present (Image via Mojang).

In order for Minecraft players to create heat blocks, they'll need to have access to a lab table first. Outside of being provided in Minecraft: Education Edition's Creative Mode, players can gain access to the block in Bedrock Edition via commands with the "Education Edition" setting enabled in their world settings.

Players can try entering the command "/give @s chemistry_table 12 1" without quotations in Bedrock Edition to receive one lab table block.

Once Minecraft players have their lab table, they'll need to place it and interact with it, which will open a menu that displays a row of input slots, the player's inventory, and a beaker, flask, and jar that will animate while experimenting with chemicals and compounds.

In the input slots, players will want to place one piece of each of the following items/chemicals within the input slots:

• Iron (Fe)
• Water
• Charcoal
• Salt

From an educational perspective, this reflects the electrochemical reaction that can be used to rust iron quickly, as iron rusts much faster within saltwater than normal water due to electrochemistry.

The very same interaction is integral to how handwarmers operate, and therefore serves as Minecraft's analog in creating a heat block.

After removing their heat block from the lab table, players will find that the heat block operates in a similar fashion to most building blocks. It can be placed and removed with ease despite having warming effects that other blocks can't match.

For a demonstration of what heat blocks are capable of, try placing them in a snowy biome near snowed-over ground blocks or sheets of ice formed over water.

Players will find that the electrochemical reaction that warms the heat block can also melt snow and ice back into liquid water, effectively removing their presence as long as the block remains.