iED 2010 SUMMIT: Harvard University Graduate School of Education
iED 2010 SUMMIT : Harvard University Graduate School of Education – Immersive Education Initiative #iED #SUMMIT Immersive Education Initiative: ImmersiveEducation.org Summit Session “ECOMUVE: LEARNING COMPLEX CAUSALITY IN ECOSYSTEMS VIA A MULTI-USER VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT” SPEAKERS Shari Metcalf, Tina Grotzer, Chris Dede, and Amy Kamarainen Faculty, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education SESSION SUMMARY: EcoMUVE is a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) for middle-school science students to learn about complex causal relationships in ecosystems. An understanding of complex causality is a necessary foundational skill for learning ecosystems. However, even after instruction, students reveal considerable difficulty reasoning about ecosystems as systems; examples include understanding non-obvious causes and indirect effects, time delays between causes and visible effects, population versus individual effects, and balance and flux. Multi-user virtual environments are a promising platform for educational applications, in part because they can simulate environments and experiences otherwise impossible in school settings. Ten years with the River City project has shown that MUVEs can be an effective platform for authentic inquiry in middle school science. Allowing students to immerse themselves in a virtual world can increase engagement and learning. Building on our experience with River City, the three-year EcoMUVE project, funded by the US Department of Education’s …
