With classroom support materials newly launched at PBS LearningMedia, Mission: Water is Children’s Media and Education’s first virtual reality project.
It’s a pair of linked apps (one for VR headsets, one for desktop or tablet) offering middle school students a unique experience in the search for water in the solar system. The project includes a parallel experience to allow one player at a time to be an Explorer (wearing a VR head-mounted display).
Students also take turns serving as Mission Control, to collect data using a desktop computer, and as Navigator, guiding the Explorer in the physical space during the game. Players work together to review information and decide the optimal places in the solar system to collect water in support of a fictionalized mission.
The project’s free VR app was officially unveiled by Microsoft as part of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference – here is one high school teacher’s reaction to it: https://vimeo.com/344996078
Digital Things! 