Robb Lindgren
The goal of ELASTICS is explore ways that body movement can be used to enhance learning of “big ideas” in science. We are developing new techniques for tracking and recognizing the hand and body movements of K12 learners so that they can interact in expressive ways with simulations from a range of topic areas in geology, chemistry, biology, etc. We are conducting interviews with high school students in Central Illinois to try and better understand how their gestures and other body actions facilitate reasoning with the cross-cutting concepts outlined in the Next Generation Science Standards, and we are integrating these findings into the design of immersive “simulation theaters” that embed learners within important science phenomena. For this demonstration Cyberlearning attendees will be able to use a few of the ELASTICS simulations, using their body movements to control scaled quantities in a few different science domains.