The Round Earth Project-collaborative VR for conceptual learning

The Round Earth Project is a collaboration among researchers in computer science, education, and psychology. It investigates two alternative pedagogical strategies for teaching children that the Earth is spherical and the implications of that fact. One strategy, which we term the transformationalist approach, attempts to effect conceptual change by breaking down the children's prior models. In contrast, the selectionist strategy attempts to effect learning in an alternative setting (in our case, a small-diameter asteroid), free of preexisting biases, and to relate that learning back to the target domain-the Earth. Virtual reality (VR) technologies support both pedagogical strategies. In the transformationalist approach, VR simulates the launching of a spacecraft from the Earth's surface and subsequent exploration within a fixed-height orbit. In the selectionist approach, VR simulates a small-diameter asteroid.