Teaching Evolution With Collective Immersive Simulations

• In Event: Curriculum Innovation and Enactment

Abstract

This paper presents the iterative design of an immersive simulation and inquiry activity for exploring evolutionary concepts in a Grade 11 Biology course. Researchers and a high school science teacher co-designed a 12-week curriculum around a room-sized simulation of a rainforest. With several large displays to immerse students in the environment, students worked as “field researchers” to observe changes in life forms over two hundred million years and gathered evidence of evolution. Student explanations from the second and third implementation demonstrated increased variation in evolutionary topics compared to those in the first iteration, although scientific connections between concepts were comparable. Key design features from the three iterations are discussed with respect to the findings.

Authors

• Michelle Lui, University of Toronto - OISE

• Maria Niño-Soto, University of Toronto Schools

• James D. Slotta, University of Toronto