| Project | Frog Island: A VRML World for Teaching Vertebrate biology. |
| Contact | Ramani Pichumani |
| ramani@stanford.edu | |
| URL | http://summit.stanford.edu/creatures |
| Project description | Frog Island is an environment where students will embark on anexploration of a 3D virtual outdoor habitat and visit various "huts"to learn about topics such as anatomy, physiology (digestion,respiration, circulation), biomechanics, and diversity. They willhave accessible at all times, a lesson plan containing an outline ofthe various lesson plans. This will allow them to enter observations,to raise questions, or to enter answers to questions that areposed. The lesson plans will help students stay focused on aparticular lesson plan without getting lost in the course of visitingvarious links. To facilitate unstructured learning modes, studentswill also be encouraged to explore the virtual environment on theirown, interacting and noting any observations they may care to make.The virtual habitat resembles a natural setting with ponds, grass,trees, meadows. There are various theme-based activity huts and parksthat will provide students with various resources needed to completetheir lesson plans and activities. |
| Theoretical background | In our view the most fundamental theoretical question raised by VirtualCreatures is: How do children learn to derive meaning from thediagrams and abstract models used in science? A Virtual Creature is aliteral, concrete representation of an organism which should betransparent to children, although unfamiliar. To understand how thestructures so plainly visible in the Creature enable it to live, move,find and digest food, reproduce, and carry out the other essentialfunctions of life, it will be necessary for children to use a range ofmore abstract representations, including schematic drawings, numericaldata, and graphs, among many other possibilities. Many children havetrouble using these abstract representations and relating them to themore concrete phenomena to which they refer. We propose to design theVirtual Creatures and the teaching units in such a way as to make verysubstantial improvements in the facility with which all children canuse abstract models.We believe we should use a constructivist, Vygotskian, theoreticalorientation which suggests that children learn to use abstract modelsmost naturally when they internalize actions they have firstencountered by participating in social activities. Our units willoffer children the opportunity to participate as part of small groupsas well as in their larger classroom group in science activities thatmake use of computer-based resources containing many representationsof anatomy and physiology. In addition, we will design our materialsto scaffold the kinds of actions and discourse with respect to suchmodels that are typical of scientific communities. Through videointerviews with scientists, we will show how scientists use visualrepresentations in formulating and evaluating questions and problems,making conjectures and hypotheses, searching for and using evidence,acting on conjectures and checking results, drawing conclusions andjustifying them. We expect that, as children work in pairs or smallgroups, they will act and talk more like scientists as they use theVirtual Creature and the other, more abstract visual resources theywill encounter.By examining influential life science goal statements, textbooks, andexaminations and by talking with life science educators we havedetermined that a virtual creature could be used to achieve a numberof important goals of life science education. The one goal for whichany design for a virtual creature would surely be most directly usefulis concerned with learning about the structure and function of thebody parts of animals and how they interact to enable the animal tolive. Students who have achieved this goal should be able to answersuch questions as: How does the organization of tissues and organsdetermine structure and function in animal systems? How are structureand function related in the various organ systems? How do the organsystems of animals interact? This is acknowledged as an important goalof life science education by all our sources - goal statements,textbooks, examinations, and teachers. This goal is receiving lessemphasis in recent years as schools put an increasing emphasis onmolecular biology and ecology, but it remains an important goal ofgeneral education and a crucial foundation for health education andfor the preparation of future health professionals.By examining influential life science goal statements, textbooks, andexaminations and by talking with life science educators we havedetermined that a virtual creature could be used to achieve a numberof important goals of life science education. The one goal for whichany design for a virtual creature would surely be most directly usefulis concerned with learning about the structure and function of thebody parts of animals and how they interact to enable the animal tolive. Students who have achieved this goal should be able to answersuch questions as: How does the organization of tissues and organsdetermine structure and function in animal systems? How are structureand function related in the various organ systems? How do the organsystems of animals interact? This is acknowledged as an important goalof life science education by all our sources - goal statements,textbooks, examinations, and teachers. This goal is receiving lessemphasis in recent years as schools put an increasing emphasis onmolecular biology and ecology, but it remains an important goal ofgeneral education and a crucial foundation for health education andfor the preparation of future health professionals.Curriculum & Aims, Walker, D., Soltis, J, Third edition "An ACOT for Tomorrow." in Charles Fisher (ed.)Education and Technology: Reflections on a Decade of Experimentation in Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996. Computers in the Classroom, Schofield, J., Journal of Curriculum Studies Winter, 1996. "New information technology and the curriculum" pp 4081-88 in Thorsten Husen and Neville T. Postlethwaite (eds.). TheInternational Encyclopedia of Education (2nd Edition) v. 7 p. 1994. Pergamon Press. |
| Challenges | The technical challenges we are facing are how to construct and present large three-dimensional models of virtual creatures on computer platforms that schools will have access to over the next few years. From an educational prespective, we are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of design-based and simulation-based learning strategies using virtual learning environments. |
| Partnership | At the moment, we are looking for science and biology teachers who would be interested in deploying the Frog Island teaching resource in their classrooms. We are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of Frog Island as a tool for teaching vertebrate anatomy and physiology. |