GeoMoto: An Embodied Learning Approach to Geoscience Education

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Geomoto is a Track 1 game/learning project, designed to foster engaging and deep conceptual learning of geoscience topics. The project will create a digital game learning module that leverages embodied learning technologies, such as Microsoft Kinect or SMALLab, to track students' physical motions and integrate them into a game/simulation experience designed to develop their understanding of dynamic geoscience concepts. Geomoto will bring common misconceptions to the surface and include opportunities for students to correct their understanding through experience and interaction. This project links state standards to game mechanics, simulations, and embodied-learning interactions that make student thinking explicit at all levels, including conceptual, procedural and conditional. Through interacting with this dynamic system, students will form a conceptualization of the earth as a fluid, multilayered, complex and interrelated dynamic system rather than as a static, homogenous object. The Geomoto project merges the assessment-driven game-learning design practices of the GameDesk Institute with content experts from Caltech's Tectonics Observatory, Boston University, Michigan State University, Bill Nye the Science Guy and the Planetary Society, and the New York Hall of Science to foster deep conceptual learning of geoscience topics. The project includes experimental studies to evaluate the effectiveness of the modules for yielding strong learning outcomes.