NASA: Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms

NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms

Mission: Water – VR for classrooms

msvrpromographic3 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

ISTE_feedback from wgbhkids on Vimeo.

fun, html5, NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms, Research

Mission: Water – our new VR experience

Dan, Kennedy, Jeff, Sophie, and Lizzy attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Conference in Philadelphia from June 23-25.

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They presented their virtual reality game, “Mission: Water,” under the umbrella of Microsoft’s presence at the conference.

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The ISTE Conference was very successful: close to 100 people demoed the game or chatted with the team about the project. Many educators and technologists expressed their excitement for the game and for the lesson plan, which will be published on PBS LearningMedia this fall. The team is very excited for the positive response and is looking forward to the official launch of all of the resources later this year.

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The VR game is available already here for free.

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The WGBH team, led by Bill Shribman, has been collaborating with Microsoft for the last year developing this game for a middle school classroom. The game consists of two networked apps: one VR game and one HTML5 game, both connected and communicating to each other.

In the experience, two players need to work together to travel through the solar system and collect samples of water at three destinations. The water samples provide data for the students to analyze and compare, and then the students can discuss which location provides the most abundant and accessible forms of water.

One high school teacher reacted to playing this as follows, talking about the children she teaches:

games, html5, NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms

New Stuff for NASA

Our varied efforts for the NASA-funded Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project have been newly added to PBS Learning Media.

We have a charming interactive story with Peep:

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A fun shadows and light game with Ruff:

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A cool, 3D Earth for an interactive, shadows exploration:

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And an interactive tool that lets you map the scale of the solar system to any point on the map:

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What a great team! Lizzy, Dan, Gentry, Jeff, Kennedy, Colin, Becca, Kal, Marnie, Jim and Bill. Thanks also, as always, to Pegeen, Rachel, Caitlin, Paula, Anne, Jake and the many others in the Education group.

And what a great legal notice! The material contained in this product is based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award No. NNX16AD71A. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Events, NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms, Ruff Ruffman: Humble Media Genius

At SXSW Edu

WGBH Children’s Media and Education is in Austin, Texas this week participating in three sessions at the 8th Annual South by Southwest Education Conference and Festival. A component of the South by Southwest family of conferences and festivals, SXSWedu “cultivates and empowers a community of engaged stakeholders to advance teaching and learning.”

· Integrating 2018 Space News Events into Your Curriculum: Rachel Connolly (WGBH Education STEM Director); and C. Alex Young (Associate Director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

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Photo: @thomascmurray

· The Best Internet Filter is Between a Child’s Ears: Bill Shribman (WGBH Children’s Media Senior Exec Producer and Director of Digital Partnerships); and Kerry Gallager (Connect Safely, and a past PBS Massachusetts Digital Innovator)

· Bringing the Science: Teaching with Authentic Data: Rachel Connolly (WGBH Education STEM Director); C. Alex Young (Associate Director for Science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center); and Javier Montiel (Educator, Brazosport Independent School District and WGBH Teacher Advisor)

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Apps, NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms, Plum Landing, Unity

Plum’s Island Explorer: a Classroom App

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Our latest app for Plum Landing is a bit different.

Designed for classroom use and built in Unity, it features a navigable island in which players explore Land and Water (with a grade 2 curriculum.)

Journey around the island and pick up trash to unlock information about specific landforms and water bodies which includes videos and ground-level and aerial images. Students use the game and associated supports to observe, identify, and record characteristics of common landforms and water bodies as they navigate and represent the landscape from an aerial perspective on a map.

Support materials are at PBS LearningMedia where you can find a desktop version of the app that’s suitable for Chromebooks as well as a Background Essay, and Teaching Tips.

This resource was developed through WGBH’s Bringing the Universe to America’s Classrooms project, in collaboration with NASA. Click here for the full collection of resources.

App Team: Dan, Lizzy, Bill, Jeff, Sophie, Gentry, Alan, and Mariee with game design advice from Nicolas and tremendous support from Rachel, Laura and the rest of this project’s education team.

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The material contained in this product is based upon work supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award No. NNX16AD71A. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms

More for NASA

Evidence of Weather – a K-2 Activity

Observe and annotate various images of weather phenomena in this interactive drawing tool produced by the Kids team at WGBH. Weather is the combination of various factors—snow or rain, wind, sunlight and clouds, and temperature—that happen in a specific location at a specific time. As the combination of factors constantly shift, the condition changes and leaves behind evidence that shows how the weather has changed. Students can use the images in this interactive tool to observe weather conditions and document evidence of weather that happened earlier in the day.

This activity is funded by NASA under cooperative agreement award No. NNX16AD71A. Any opinions, finding, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms, Plum Landing, Unity

Plum Meets NASA

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Plum’s Island Explorer: Land and Water – a Classroom Activity for Grades K-2

Navigate around the island to explore various landforms and water bodies in this interactive Unity game from PLUM LANDING.

For best results, play this game in full-screen in Chrome or Firefox.

NASA: Bringing the Universe to America's Classrooms, Ruff Ruffman

Ruff Meets NASA

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Ruff Ruffman’s Ring of Fire Travel Guide: A Classroom Activity for Grades 3-5

Learn about volcanoes in the Ring of Fire and their relationship to earthquakes and mountain ranges with this game featuring PBS Kids character Ruff Ruffman produced by WGBH. Students help Ruff verify information about volcanoes that he has presented in a travel guide for his grandmother’s vacation. The game includes visual and text-based reference materials that students use as they progress through the game and learn about the relationships between volcanoes, earthquakes, and mountain ranges.