OPEN Classroom Materials and Professional Advancement Opportunities for Teachers

OPEN and The Quest Atlantis Program
Standards-Based Online 3D Multi-User Virtual Environments Education Programs

(for ages 9-14)

OPEN in partnership with Indiana University School of Education offers schools worldwide the standards-based Quest Atlantis (QA) online 3D learning environments to classrooms worldwide.

The QA learning and teaching program combines strategies from the commercial gaming environment with lessons from research and motivation. It allows users to travel to virtual places to perform educational activities (known as Quests), talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae. A Quest is an engaging curricular task designed to be entertaining yet educational.

Thousands of students from schools in the USA, China, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Singapore are enjoying learning about the important issues of our planet together. And soon schools in Nigeria and India and hopefully Mexico and Peru will soon be joining us.

So if you want to join in the QA learning adventure please first visit – www.questatlantis.org and then contact us at QAinfo@oneplaneteducation.com

Examples of some of the 3D Learning programs we are offering and new program series under development:

Virtual Parks Project: Linking Youth, Heritage, and Communities without Borders

Many have heard about Yellowstone National Park and the Great Wall of China, and some have heard about less well-known world heritage sites like Mesa Verde National Park. But for most young people these are not places through which they find their history or shape their sense of self in context with their environment. It is generally not part of their worldview. In contrast, videogames have become one of the most significant forms of media for the enculturation of youth and adults alike. The OPEN Virtual Parks Project: Linking Youth, Heritage and Communities without Borders leverages 3D multi-user (online “gaming”) technologies to have students and their families virtually explore the rich histories and beautiful natural environments of our National Parks. Through such engaging learning environments we hope more people will develop a greater appreciation of our shared global heritage.

It is the focus of the Virtual Parks Project to leverage and utilize the already highly successful 3D multi-user (online “gaming”) technology and international education program, Quest Atlantis (QA), developed by OPEN’s partner, Indiana University School of Education. Through our Virtual Parks Project, initially integrated within Quest Atlantis, we will develop and test an exciting and powerful series of virtual learning applications (3D worlds) that represent significant real-world locations and offer curriculum and game-based adventures for 4-8th-grade (9-14 year olds) teachers.

These initial learning applications include Mesa Verde National Park and World Heritage Site, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and World Heritage Site, the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary (with the support of the Cousteau Ocean Futures Society), Monte Alban in Mexico, Machu Picchu in Peru, and more. Each adventure or mission will be designed to connect to specific state, provincial and/or national academic standards and disciplinary content, but will be wrapped up in a game-based scenario or compelling narrative that will help young students better understand and value both our cultural and natural heritage.

Virtual Mesa Verde – Spruce Tree House™ - An Online Virtual Learning Environment of Mesa Verde National Park and World Heritage Site

Students enter just outside the visitor center and museum and are greeted by Park Ranger Tessy Shirakawa who welcomes them to the Park and sends them off on their first mission to identify and learn of the native plants that the early inhabitants, the Ancestral Pueblo, used to their advantage in surviving and thriving in the high desert in 1200 A.D. After meeting with modern descendents of the Ancestral Pueblo, students will learn how they constructed some of the most famous, long-lasting and beautiful Native American dwellings and villages in what is now called North America. And if students can interpret their tribal creation and migration stories (heard in both English and Hopi languages), curious hard-working Questers will get to time travel to 1230 A.D., and meet their great ancestors, building the Spruce Tree House Cliff dwelling.

Spruce Tree house is the third largest and most accessible example of Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwell houses. It was built between AD1211 and 1278 in what is now southwest Colorado in the United States. For more informational on the Spruce Tree House, visit: www.nps.gov/meve/cliff_dwellings/spruce_tree_house_home.htm

U.S. Department of Education Supports OPEN and QA Virtual Park Series

Thanks to a recent generous Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education to OPEN, we will complete our Virtual Mesa Verde – Spruce Tree House™ prototype and test in a North Carolina classroom in the fall of 2008. We will next build and test Virtual Volcanoes National Park and World Heritage Site, and a virtual underwater marine sanctuary – Virtual Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Marine Sanctuary, with the help of the Parks and Marine Sanctuary caretakers, the Cousteau Ocean Futures Society and others.

With further funding we hope to invite Monte Alban in Mexico, Machu Picchu in Peru, Olympic National Park in Washington State, Yosemite, and more Parks and World Heritage Sites in the U.S. and internationally. Each education adventure or mission within our Virtual Parks series will be designed to connect to specific state, provincial and/or national academic standards and disciplinary content, but will be wrapped up in a game-based scenario or compelling narrative that will help young students better understand and value both our cultural and natural heritage.

Saving the Black Rhino™

Mkomazi Young Rhino - Badger's Afternoon Siesta Photo by George Newman of OPEN

In Black Rhino students enter and explore a 3D animated simulation of a real-life African Game Reserve called Mkomazi, which is located in North East Tanzania. Through the subject areas of standards-based science, social studies, and language arts, students will learn the issues and sometime conflicting perspectives surrounding the survival of the Black Rhino. While exploring this 3D virtual environment, students will engage in scientific inquiry, critical thinking and decision-making, while exploring African cultures, peoples, the remaining wildlife and habitats, and the sustainable alternative energy sources that help run the Mkomazi Reserve.

OPEN's Teacher Science and Math Resources

Inspire Students in the Sciences!!
Learn About Human Ancestry Through DNA Analysis at www.oxfordancestors.com

Science and Math Resource Links

OPEN'S SECOND HONORARY TERRIFIC TECH TEACHER FEATURE

Nicole Grace-Hummer

Teachers' Domain

WGBH Boston Public Broadcasting Service (PBS)

Teachers' Domain has just released its Earth and Space Science collection of classroom-ready resources and lesson plans. Lesson plans incorporate multimedia resources from public television programs such as NOVA and ZOOM, including video and audio clips, interactive applications, images, and documents. Teachers' Domain, produced by WGBH Boston, is an online educational service designed to help teachers build content and pedagogic knowledge and enhance their students' learning experience.

The Teachers' Domain collections include classroom-ready multimedia instructional resources; and professional development courses which utilize many of the same resources, along with videos of exemplary classroom practice. DLESE Program Center staff and community members acted as core science advisors, resource reviewers, and lesson plan developers on this NSDL Pathways project. Other Teachers' Domain collections on the web site address life science, physical science, engineering, and civil rights.

Download the Brochure.
Download the course offerings.
For more info visit: www.teachersdomain.org.