The Round Earth Project-collaborative VR for conceptual learning

Abstract

T he concept of a round Earth isn't a simple one for children to acquire. Their everyday experience reinforces their deeply held notion that the Earth is flat. Told by adults that the Earth is round, they often react by constructing a mental model of the Earth as a pancake, or a terrarium-like structure with people living on the flat dirt layer inside, or even a dual model with a spherical Earth and a flat Earth coexisting simultaneously. In effect, children attempt to accommodate the new knowledge within the framework of their existing conceptual models. Unfortunately, holding tight to the features of those prior models inhibits fundamental conceptual change. The Round Earth Project is a collaboration among researchers in computer science, education, and psychology. It investigates two alternative pedagogical strategies for teaching children that the Earth is spherical and the implications of that fact. One strategy, which we term the transformationalist approach, attempts to effect conceptual change by breaking down the children's prior models. In contrast, the selectionist strategy attempts to effect learning in an alternative setting (in our case, a small-diameter asteroid), free of preexisting biases, and to relate that learning back to the target domain-the Earth. Virtual reality (VR) technologies support both pedagogical strategies. In the transformationalist approach, VR simulates the launching of a spacecraft from the Earth's surface and subsequent exploration within a fixed-height orbit. In the selectionist approach, VR simulates a small-diameter asteroid. Thus learners may walk on a body with a curved horizon, see objects appear from below the horizon, take a long walk around

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