Mission HydroSci (MHS) teaches water systems and scientific argumentation towards meeting Next Generation Science Standards. MHS is a game-based 3D virtual environment for enacting transformational role-playing, wherein students must learn new knowledge and competencies in order to successfully complete the game missions. MHS was developed for middle school science as a replacement unit of about 6 to 8 hours and uses analytics and a teacher dashboard to help teachers support their students.
The MHS game provides an active learning environment for meeting these learning objectives by engaging students in a narrative about needing to investigate water resources and use scientific argumentation to complete missions critical to the survival and accomplishments of the members of their scientific enterprise. Along with the narrative gameplay MHS includes learning progressions for water systems science and scientific argumentation, a visually exciting environment, substantial interaction and feedback, and applies transformational role-playing as an approach to integrate learning within gameplay.
We plan a field test using a randomized control trial (RCT) to rigorously evaluate the impact of MHS game play. The RCT will be undertaken in Winter, 2019. However, to test the feasibility of conducting a large field test in classrooms we undertook a feasibility field test in the Spring of 2018. Our poster will present MHS and the statistical results of the study from pre and post testing along with lessons learned about the implementation
