Becoming Joey: Promoting Informal Learning through Embodiment in an Adelie Penguin Virtual Reality Experience

该项目将为更广泛的公众提供一种新的手段，通过沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）体验更好地了解一个重要的极地研究课题--南极洲的阿德利企鹅。这项提议的基础是建立在威斯康星州探索虚拟环境研究所小组、威斯康星州冰立方粒子天体物理中心（WIPAC）、威斯康星州-麦迪逊校区的野外日实验室和南极研究科学家兼教育家Jean Pennycook之间的合作努力之上。合作团队将创建一个VR体验，讲述阿德利企鹅的故事，以及它们如何影响所有公民的生活。该项目将加强和改善公众对目前正在南极洲进行的阿德利企鹅研究的理解，该研究在Jean Pennycook的“成为乔伊”一书中概述，其中包括跨学科的科学重点领域，如大气科学，生态学和生物学。最终的VR产品将在公共展览空间、VR应用程序商店、国家和国际科学活动以及可公开访问的网站上展示。该体验将提供西班牙语和其他相关语言的隐藏字幕和翻译，以使创建的产品更容易访问。 该项目还将通过奖学金计划为当地的两名教育工作者提供培训工具和资源。该项目将允许用户以一种引人入胜的方式虚拟体验阿德利企鹅背后的科学，将用户化身为阿德利企鹅，参与基于叙事的VR应用程序，分享这些独特动物的生活故事。VR技术使用户能够体验难以或不可能居住的环境，例如地球的极地地区。具体的互动将提供丰富的信息，围绕参与者的行动和观点。项目团队之前的工作已经表明，虚拟体验的视点分析可以在3D环境中确定可用于提供事件摘要的显著特征。最近的研究表明，玩家在视频游戏中的行为可以用来预测学习结果和早期退出，但很少有研究在VR中研究这些影响。鉴于用户的虚拟行动信息丰富，该奖项旨在探索参与者的观点、行动和决策如何与他们的学习成果和参与度相关。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will provide a new means for the broader public to better understand an important polar research topic, the Adelie penguins of Antarctica, through an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience. The foundation of this proposal is built upon a collaborative effort between the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery Virtual Environments Group, the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center (WIPAC), the Field Day Lab from the University of Wisconsin - Madison campus, and an Antarctic research scientist and educator, Jean Pennycook. The collaborative team will create a VR experience to tell the story of Adelie Penguins and how they impact the lives of all citizens. The project will enhance and improve the public’s understanding of the research on Adelie penguins that is currently underway in Antarctica and that is outlined in the book “Becoming Joey” by Jean Pennycook with a narrative that includes an interdisciplinary scientific focus on fields such as atmospheric sciences, ecology and biology. The final VR product will be showcased in a public exhibition space, VR app stores, national and international science events, and publicly accessible websites. The experience will provide closed captioning and translations for Spanish and other relevant languages to enable a greater accessibility for the created products. The project will also serve as a training tool and resource for two local educators through a fellowship program.The project will allow users to virtually experience the science behind Adelie Penguins in an engaging way through embodying the user as an Adelie Penguin to partake in a narrative-based VR application that shares the story of the lives of these unique animals. VR technology enables users to experience environments that are difficult or impossible to physically inhabit, such as the Earth’s polar regions. The embodied interaction will provide a wealth of information around a participant’s actions and perspectives. Previous work from the project team has shown that viewpoint analysis of a virtual experience can pinpoint salient features in a 3D environment that can be used to provide a summary of events. Recent work has shown that player actions inside of video games can be used to predict learning outcomes and early quitting, but little work has studied these effects in VR. Given the wealth of information about a user’s virtual actions, this proposal aims to explore how a participant’s views, actions, and decisions correlate to their learning outcomes and engagement.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.