ML Students Explore the Past Using VR

Middle Learning is pioneering the use of ClassVR virtual reality goggles in fifth grade this year, as a collaboration between social studies and technology classes, thanks to a donation from the Goizueta grant. Fifth grade social studies teacher Robin Elms uses the goggles to explore plate tectonics and the relation to landmasses and countries on the crust. Students can move between levels to explore how the world we see connects to the world beneath our feet. Elms says that allowing students to explore distant countries and ancient worlds with VR makes perfect sense, given Galloway's emphasis on experiential and project-based learning. The success Elms has seen in her classes has led sixth grade social studies teacher Brandy Humphreys to also incorporate the VR Goggles into her lessons in the near future.

ML technology teacher Mark Gerl is also incorporating the VR goggles as an extension of 3D Design and Creation, allowing students to create a virtual scene from a book or a moment in history. Using the web app CoSpaces.io, students can select or create environments and then populate those spaces with people, animals, objects, or buildings, all of which can be animated with the CoSpaces drag and drop coding feature, or using Python scripting language. The scenes they create are immersive, interactive, and entirely of their design. Gerl says "This is what Seymour Papert called 'low floors, high ceilings, wide walls.' It's easy to get started, has potential for tremendous growth, and allows students to bring their own perspectives and personalities into their projects".