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370 KIM, ANDERSON, NGUYEN-JAHIEL, ARCHODIDOU

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THE JOURNAL OF THE LEARNING SCIENCES, 16(3), 371--413
Copyright 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Augmented Reality Simulations
on Handheld Computers
Kurt Squire
School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Eric Klopfer
Teacher Education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Advancements in handheld computing, particularly its portability, social interac
tivity, context sensitivity, connectivity, and individuality, open new opportunities for
immersive learning environments. This article articulates the pedagogical potential
of augmented reality simulations in environmental engineering education by im
mersing students in the roles of scientists conducting investigations. This design ex
periment examined if augmented reality simulation games can be used to help stu
dents understand science as a social practice, whereby inquiry is a process of
balancing and managing resources, combining multiple data sources, and forming
and revising hypotheses in situ. We provide 4 case studies of secondary environmen
tal science students participating in the program. Positioning students in virtual in
vestigations made apparent their beliefs about science and confronted simplistic be
liefs about the nature of science. Playing the game in "real" space also triggered
students' preexisting knowledge, suggesting that a powerful potential of augmented
reality simulation games can be in their ability to connect academic content and prac
tices with students' physical, lived worlds. The game structure provided students a
narrative to think with, although students differed in their ability to create a coherent
narrative of events. We argue that Environmental Detectives is I model for helping
students understand the socially situated nature of scientific practice.
This research was supported with a grant from Microsoft-MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Techno1
ogy) iCampus as a part of the Games-to-Teach Project. We would like to thank Henry Jenkins of MIT
and Randy Hinrichs at Microsoft Research, co-principal investigators of this project, for their support, as
well as Kodjo Hesse, Gunnar Harboe, and Walter Holland for their hard work in the development of Envi
ronmental Detectives. Thanks to Susan Yoon for her helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article.
Correspondence should be addressed to Kurt Squire, School of Education, University of Wis
consin-Madison, 5446 Teacher Education Building, 225 N. Mills St., Madison, WI 53706. E-mail:
kdsquire@education.wisc.edu
372 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
INTRODUCTION
The use of computer simulations is changing the very nature of scientific investiga
tion (Casti, 1998) and providing unique insights into the way the world works
(Wolfram, 2002). Scientists can now experiment in a virtual world of complex, dy
namic systems in.a way that was impossible just years ago. These tools have led to
discoveries on topics ranging from the origins of planets to the spread of diseases
through human populations. In an effort to engage students in the authentic making
of science, many science educators (e.g., Feurzeig & Roberts, 1999) have begun
using models and simulations in classrooms as well (cf. Colella, Klopfer, &
Resnick, 2001; Friedman & diSessa, 1999; Stratford, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1998).
To date, most computer simulations have been tethered to the desktop, as they have
relied on the processing power of desktop computers, but more ubiquitous and in
creasingly powerful portable devices have made entirely new kinds of simulation
experiences possible (Holland, Jenkins, & Squire 2003).
Handheld computers' portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, con
nectivity, and individuality open new opportunities for creating participatory and
augmented reality simulations wherein players playa part in a simulated system,
coming to understand its properties through social interactions (Colella, 2000).
One possible genre of applications is augmented reality simulations, simulations
in which virtual data are connected to real-world locations and contexts (Klopfer et
al., 2001). In fields such as environmental science, where investigations are pro
foundly rooted in the particulars of local context, augmented reality applications
invite science educators to bring the environment into the investigation process
while exploring phenomena impossible to produce in the real world, such as dis
eases or toxic chemicals flowing through watersheds. By simulating a virtual in
vestigation, educators can potentially initiate students into environmental science
as a coherent social practice, as opposed to a set of disconnected procedures or
body of facts. Investigating how a toxin such as trichloroethylene (TCE) spreads
through a watershed might be educationally valuable (particularly for environmen
tal engineering students who might eventually conduct such investigations), but it
is obviously too dangerous to pursue. In this article, we explore how augmented
reality applications might playa role in environmental science education as they
allow curriculum developers to design game trade-offs around core disciplinary
dilemmas (Cobb et al., 2000), nonlinear open-ended dilemmas with no clear boun
daries, that are central to a field. This allows students to learn through failure, by
intellectual play with robust disciplinary problems. Students' reflections on their
successes and failure combined with carefully crafted collaboration allow them to
explore difficult and complex tasks while building expertise in the field.
This research study examined the potential for creating an augmented reality
application around the core of environmental science practice, as defined by fac
ulty in a leading environmental research department. Specifically, we wanted stu-
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 373
dents to understand (a) trade-offs between efficiency and quality of data in con
ducting an investigation, (b) the importance of synthesizing background "desktop
research" with secondary sources and primary data collected in the field, and (c)
the necessity of continuously refining hypotheses in response to emerging data. In
short, a struggle for students studying environmental science (particularly engi
neering students) is in understanding that research programs are situated in social
contexts in which access to resources, affordances and constraints of tools, and,
perhaps most importantly, time shape inquiry (Bhandari & Erickson, 2005; Latour,
1987). Emerging pedagogies such as case studies are increasingly used to help en
vironmental engineering students understand the socially situated nature of engi
neering as a practice and see the interrelationships among variables in conducting
an investigation. Within high school science curricula, these same educational
goals align with most state earth science inquiry standards.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Specifically, this research study investigated the following: How can handheld
augmented reality technologies and game play be used to enrich inquiry and pro
vide a new pedagogical paradigm for environmental science education? We hy
pothesized that an augmented reality game that positions players as environmental
scientists conducting a virtual investigation of a hypothetical toxic spill (modeled
on a similar case study) might help participants learn to see investigations as so
cially situated enterprises. As such, this research study also investigated the poten
tial of designing learning environments using digital gaming conventions and aes
thetics (e.g., character conventions) to enlist and mobilize game players' identities
and aesthetic considerations (Games-to-Teach Team, 2003; Gee, 2003).
Working with environmental science faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, we developed augmented reality simulations of a carcinogenic toxin
(TCE) flowing through an urban watershed, known collectively as Environmental
Detectives. In a series of four case studies with approximately 75 students, we ex
amined the following: (a) what practices students engaged in while participating in
Environmental Detectives, and specifically how they integrated real and virtual
data in problem solving and conducting their scientific investigations; (b) how stu
dents constructed the problem (e.g., as well defined or open ended, authentic or
inauthentic); (c) how field investigation in the physical environment mediated stu
dents' inquiry; and (d) what instructional supports were useful in supporting learn
ing. We explored how augmented reality simulations could be used as learning
tools for understanding the socially situated nature of science, specifically in situa
tions in which educators want the physical environment to be a part of students'
thinking and scientific reasoning. Through presenting a series of case studies, we
374 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
attempt to articulate how this pedagogical model can work, while also suggesting
where there are limitations in our current understandings of how it functions.
THEORETICAL APPROACH: AUGMENTED REALITY
AND SITUATED COGNITION
Over the past decades, a growing number of educational theorists and researchers
in the learning sciences have argued for the importance of understanding cognition
in context (e.g., Barab & Kirshner, 2001; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Cogni
tion and Technology Group at Vanderbilt, 1990; Greeno, 1998; Kirshner &
Whitson, 1997). Whereas traditional cognitive models treat the workings of the
mind as somewhat independent, a host of emerging, complementary approaches to
cognition treat cognition and context as inextricably linked. How these different
approaches construct the notion of context depends on their underlying theoretical
framework. In this article, we use this situated model of cognition as the basis for
designing a curriculum around conducting investigations in environmental sci
ence. Specifically, we try to use augmented realities to situate learners in emotion
ally compelling, cognitively complex problem-solving contexts.
Learning as Doing
Greeno (1998) introduced the notion of situativity as a way of understanding the
problem space of a learning episode. Greeno described problem space as "the un
derstanding of a problemby a problemsol ver, including a representation of the sit
uation, the main goal, and operators for changing situations, and strategies, plans,
and knowledge of general properties and relations in the domain" (p. 7). Whereas
traditional psychological models consider the individual learner operating without
regard to context, situativity theorists argue that there is no such thing as con
text-independent thought and behavior. The central goal of educational psychol
ogy from this perspective is to understand performance as it occurs in socially
meaningful situations, accounting for multiperson communal structures, individu
als' goals and intentions, and tools and resources that mediate action. Learning is
always fundamentally about doing something for some purpose in a social context
equipped with tools and resources, making the minimal meaningful ontology the
"who, what, where, and whys" of a situation (Wertsch, 1998).
Because learning is a process of creating meaning in situ, the environment plays
an important role in the processes of knowing and learning; the environment con
strains activity, affords particular types of activity or performance, and supports
performance (Dewey, 1938; Peirce, 1868/1992; Salomon, 1993). Effective action
is always situated within environmental constraints and affordances, and a mark of
expertise is one's ability to see the environment in particular ways (cf. Glenberg,
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 375
1997; Goodwin, 1994). If one is to take a situated view of environmental engineer
ing, then a primary goal is to help students learn to see the environment as an envi
ronmental engineer might. Educators need to help students become attuned to the
affordances and limitations of doing in environmental science, particularly navi
gating complex problem spaces with multiple variables and solutions. From this
perspective, it is not enough for students to know a list of facts or procedures about
environmental engineering. They need robust experiences in environmental engi
neering that can be the basis for future action. Indeed, from the situated perspec
tive, an indictment of most school-based learning is the way that information is
cleaved from direct experience in the physical world, processed and digested for
learners (Barab, Cherkes-Julkowski, Swenson, Garrett, & Shaw, 1999). In the case
of environmental science, this means being handed prepackaged research tech
niques (such as sampling strategies) or investigative design heuristics (e.g., investi
gations as social processes that involve managing budgets and constraints) without
having opportunities to develop such understandings through action and to appre
ciate their practical importance. Results and procedures are handed to students
ready made, divorced from the social contexts that produce them.
Designing Learning Environments Based on Situated
Learning Theory
Apprenticeships have been posited as one model for education as they situate
learners in complex tasks whereby they have access to expert cognition-includ
ing the social context of activity (Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989). Unfortu
nately, apprenticing students to experts is not always feasible, particularly for sec
ondary students or postsecondary students in an early stage of career development,
as studied here. Apprenticeships are also often long, difficult, even exploitive. As
Shaffer (2004) argued, a challenge facing contemporary learning scientists is how
to recreate the most robust learning moments of apprenticeships (which often oc
cur in the practicum), but in ways that are most efficacious for long-term learning.
We hypothesized that augmented reality simulations are one possible way to en
gage learners in complex investigations within a context that is socially safe and
feasible.
Augmented reality approaches draw from earlier situated approaches, ranging
from problem-based learning to case-based scenarios to anchored instruction,
which Barab and Duffy (2000) called practice field approaches. In the context of
environmental science, handheld computers allow students to collect data while
conducting complex field investigations, access authentic tools and resources, and
participate in collaborative learning practices while in the field. Whereas tradi
tional desktop virtual reality applications or three-dimensional gaming technolo
gies such as MUVEs burden the computer with reproducing reality in three dimen
sions, augmented realities exploit the affordances of the real world, providing
376 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
users layers of data that augment their experience of reality. As a result, simula
tions are untethered from the desktop and learners can participate in technol
ogy-enhanced investigations, location-based games, or participatory simulations.
Because players are free to move throughout the world, novel opportunities exist
for learners to interact with the physical environment, literally reading the land
scape as they conduct environmental investigations or historical studies.
Inquiry and Environmental Investigations
Augmented realities attempt to build on earlier work with digital tools that attempt
to use technologies to mediate students' interactions with science. Tools such as
Model-It (Spitulnik et al., 1995) or Climate Watcher (Edelson, Pea, & Gomez,
1996) have been used to help learners engage in scientific modeling processes that
enable students to build understandings of their environment or that mediate how
students encounter dilemmas, collaborate in solving problems, and represent prob
lem solutions (Salomon, 1993).
Handheld augmented realities borrow much from the tradition of handheld
probeware and the inquiry-based labs that have been designed around this technol
ogy (Staudt, 2001). Using handhelds with data logging probes attached, students
can collect real-time data out in the field, and either analyze them on site or down
load them back in the classroom for further analysis and comparison. Many teach
ers have created environmental science labs that use these tools to collect informa
tion about the pH of soil in the schoolyard as a proximate measure of acid rain or
about the dissolved oxygen in a nearby pond as a measure of the pond's health.
These labs provide authentic inquiry through the use of real data, tools, and loca
tions that matter to the students. Students explore science in a physical and geo
graphical context and experience connections between science and their world.
However, the questions students might investigate in these activities are con
strained by the actual environmental health in the area. The actual inquiry may be
somewhat trivial and limited if there is nothing anomalous to explore. From the
perspective of designing a learning activity it may be highly desirable to subtly (or
dramatically) disturb the environment to provide the students with a rich situation
to investigate. For a variety of obvious reasons, such real perturbations are not
practical, except in rare cases.
Augmented reality simulations can combine the positive features of simulations
and probeware to nearly approximate the case of being able to explore experimen
tally perturbed environments. Such simulations could provide the benefits of ex
plorations in context, linking science and the students' surroundings, with the
nearly limitless inquiry potential of simulations by (a) tying a more broadly appli
cable intellectual experience to a core disciplinary dilemma and scientific practice,
and (b) using computational media to help students appropriate their real sur
roundings for authentic simulated investigations.
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 377
In particular, we tried to use the Pocket PCs' multimedia and simulation capaci
ties for interactive storytelling, creating contexts wherein learners would experi
ence a story that could become a narrative to think with in the study of science (cf.
Schank, 1994). Pocket PCs, which can display video, text, and host webs of infor
mation in intranets, can create virtual worlds that go beyond just presenting data by
providing narrative context similar to problem-based learning or anchored instruc
tion environments. Leveraging design techniques from role-playing games (cf.
Gee, 2003), we investigated if augmented reality simulations could entice learners
into complex scientific practices through adopting the personae of scientists. We
hypothesized that opportunities existed for immersive gaming environments to re
cruit players into assuming new identities as environmental investigators, scien
tists, and environmental activists, thereby encouraging students to adopt ways of
thinking that might be ideal preparation for future learning.
Augmented reality applications hold particular promise in disciplines such as
environmental engineering, in which spatial and contextual information are core
components of professional practice. In authentic field studies, such as investigat
ing and remediating toxic spills, spatial information about the distribution of the
spill and location-sensitive information about the spill's proximity to other parts of
the environment are central to conducting an investigation. However, the inves
tigative process, sampling strategies, and remediation strategies are all mediated
by social factors (cf. Dorweiler & Yakhou, 1998).1 Students often have difficulty
recognizing the situated nature of environmental engineering investigations and
learning to act effectively within the many constraints (Nepf, 2002).
Yet these constraints and the ability to adapt to them are key disciplinary prac
tices that are manifest in several distinct ways. First, environmental investigations
are affected by resource constraints. The amount of time, money, equipment, and
human power available affects what strategies are feasible in any given context.
Second, the physical particulars of the research context drive an investigation, and
research goals are often reprioritized in relation to local context. For example, dis
covering a lethal toxin in groundwater in close proximity to a major source of
drinking water might be cause for reevaluating a research approach, whereas a
similar toxin in another location that does not use groundwater for drinking would
not be. Third, there is an interplay between desktop research and collecting field
data. In some cases, a knowledgeable informant can save investigators time and
money by pointing investigators to probable culprits. Finally, social constraints af
fect both the investigative process and remediation strategies, as investigators need
to manage how their work is perceived by others (particularly the press). Investiga
tors need to avoid generating unwarranted public alarm or, in some cases, generat
ing bad press for clients. A few environmental educators have begun exploring
Thanks to Heidi Nepf, hydrologist and toxicologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
for helping us understand these factors.
378 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
how immersing students in problems based on current events might serve as useful
pedagogical models in environmental and chemical engineering to address some
of these issues (cf. Dorland & Baria, 1995; Patterson, 1980).
CONTEXT
This study examined the implementation of a particular augmented reality simula
tion, Environmental Detectives, in three different university classes and one high
school class. We deliberately chose a wide range of classes in order to see how
learners with different backgrounds and affiliations toward science would react to
this experimental program. As such, the study was designed to illustrate the range
of possible enactments of the program, rather than generate strict comparisons.
This study was a part of a larger design research agenda (Collins, 1992) exploring
the potential of augmented reality for supporting learning in environmental educa
tion. Environmental Detectives is an augmented reality simulation game for the
Pocket PC developed by the investigating team using the Microsoft .NET compact
framework. Environmental Detectives was designed in consultation with environ
mental engineering faculty and is matched to scientific inquiry learning goals in
advanced-placement-level science, making it possible for use across high school
and college courses (with teachers choosing to appropriate it in different ways ac
cording to the contexts).
Curricular Goals and Framework
The curricular goal of Environmental Detectives is to give students an experience
of leading a complex environmental science investigation so that they can under
stand the socially situated nature of scientific investigations. The game scenario
was designed in consultation with two environmental science faculty and designed
around a core dilemma of environmental science: how to conduct effective envi
ronmental investigations within social, geographic, and temporal constraints. This
scenario requires students to (a) develop sampling strategies, (b) analyze and inter
pret data, (c) read and interpret scientific texts to understand the problem, and (d)
ultimately design a viable remediation plan for core constituents. Scientific inves
tigations are frequently presented to students as closed-ended problems with one
right answer that can be solved linearly (cf. Zolin, Fruchter, & Levitt, 2003). Con
versely, scientists in the field continuously frame and reframe the problem in re
sponse to budgetary and time constraints, local conditions, and what is known
about the problem. As an example, researchers design sampling strategies in rela
tion to the chemical and physical properties of a toxin, its potential health and envi
ronmental effects, legal issues surrounding its spread, and local conditions, such as
nearby waterways and impediments to sampling (i.e., human-made physical struc-
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS
379
tures or waterways). Consistent with efforts such as the Problem- Project- Product
Process- People-Based Learning Laboratory at Stanford University (Fruchter, in
press; ), our goal was to immerse students in complex problem spaces where they
would draw on diverse resources, design creative solutions, and work across com
plex distributed environments in solving problems.
Environmental Detectives
In Environmental Detectives, participants work in teams of 2 to 3 students playing
the role of environmental engineers investigating a simulated chemical spill within
a watershed. In the university implementations, the watershed is surrounding the
students' university, including a nearby river, whereas for the high school students
the watershed is associated with a working farm located within a nature center. The
high school class regularly takes field trips to the nature center, thus making it the
best proxy environment comparable to the university campus. Both real-world wa
tersheds include streams, trees, and other natural elements that are then augmented
by a simulation of an environmental disaster: in this case, a toxic spill of TCE that
can potentially contaminate ground and surface water. In the university case, fur
ther context was added concerning a recent construction project on campus,
whereas in the high school case additional information was added concerning a
possible state buyout of the farm at the nature center. Each of these additions was
done to provide locally topical information, a hallmark of augmented realities.
Moving about in the real world, the handheld computers (Pocket PCs) provide a
simulation whereby students can take simulated sample readings, interview virtual
people, and get local geographical information (see Figure 1).
The spread of TCE is simulated on a location-aware Pocket PC, which,
equipped with a global positioning system (GPS) device, allows players to sample
chemical concentrations in the groundwater depending on their location. For ex
ample, a player standing at Point a, near the source of the spill (see Figure 1), might
take a reading of 85 parts per billion, whereas a student standing on the opposite
end of campus (Point b) might take a reading of 10 points per billion. Players are
given three reusable virtual drilling apparatuses that they can use to drill for water
samples. After drilling for a sample, players must wait 3 min for the drilling to
complete and an additional 1 to 3 min for a sample to be processed. These waiting
periods were designed into the game to simulate actual temporal constraints. This
limits students to collecting only three samples at a time, driving them to develop
sampling strategies to optimize the amount of territory that they can cover within
their limited time.
Environmental Detectives contains a multimedia database of resources that stu
dents can access to learn more about the chemical makeup of TCE, where TCE is
found on campus, the health risks associated with exposure to TCE, how TCE
flows through groundwater, relevant Environmental Protection Agency regula
380 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER .
EDs -4E 4:07
for degreasing fabricated metals and as
an intermediate in plastics
manufacture. Other common uses
include heat exchange, refrigeration,
dry-cleaning, and paint removal. It is
insoluable, colorless, and nonflammable,
FIGURE 1 (Left) A screenshot from Environmental Detectives. The red dot indicates the
player's current location and is guided by real-world position as supplied by a global position
ing system device. The pink markers represent locations of interviews, whereas the blue mark
ers show where the player has already sampled the water. (Right) Some of the textual resources
that players can uncover.
tions regarding TCE, remediation strategies for cleaning up TCE, and the political
and economic consequences of Environmental Protection Agency violations on
campus. Students access these resources by obtaining interviews from virtual ex
perts located at various points around the campus in locations roughly correspond
ing with actual operations. That is, an expert on hydrology would be near a build
ing where that topic is studied, and a character with records of where chemicals are
used would be located near an office that performs these functions. Because there
is not enough time to interview everyone or to drill more than a handful of wells,
students must make choices between collecting interviews, gathering background
information, and drilling wells, adjusting and reprioritizing goals as new informa
tion becomes available.
In addition to simulating an environmental investigation within complex so
cially situated settings, Environmental Detectives is designed to leverage the
affordances and conventions of computer gaming to intellectually engage students
in complex problem solving by providing a safe realm for experimenting with new
ideas and new identities. Whereas in authentic environmental engineering investi
gations (or learning-by-apprenticeship models) students' failure might result in
damaged professional reputation, a waste of public resources, or, in a worst case
381 AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS
scenario, human illness or death, games and simulations allow students to enact
strategies in a pedagogically safe space where failure is possible, if not expected,
and players are encouraged to experiment with new ideas and identities.
To be successful in Environmental Detectives, students must combine both the
real-world and virtual-world data to get to the bottom of the problem. The precise
location of the spill is unknowable to students, and there is no one perfect solution
to remediating the problem; each solution involves political, financial, and practi
cal trade-offs that must be considered. Consistent with problem-based learning
frameworks (e.g., Barron et al., 1998), students use their handheld computers as
tools for gathering firsthand data about the location and severity of the spill, and as
a resource for accessing archives of information about toxicology, hydrology, sim
ilar cases, and local environmental conditions.
Although each participant chooses his or her own path through the informa
tional and geographic landscape of the game, the following describes what a typi
cal player might experience. By design, Environmental Detectives starts with a
statement of the problem (the potential contamination of a local water supply with
a chemical) that should provoke questions about the geographic extent and inten
sity of the problem (determined by collecting primary quantitative data) and the
history and future ramifications of the problem (determined through interviews
with experts). A team of players (2-3) in the game might start by walking from the
initial briefing location (where all players receive an orientation) to the site of the
initial reported measurement (which may take 5-10 min) and taking a measure
there by drilling a virtual sampling well. After getting that reading back (reported
as a unitless number, e.g., "40" rather than "40 parts per billion"), they may seek an
expert who could help explain that reading. Along the way to that location, the
players might take additional samples (by drilling wells) along some transect to try
to determine a trend in the samples. After getting information on what units the
readings are reported in and thus their significance, the players could decide to
seek information from other experts on health or legal ramifications of the toxin, or
perhaps investigate from where the toxin may have come. They would also need to
return to the geographic site of their sampling wells to retrieve the readings from
those locations. This process ideally would be iterated, taking a planned array of
samples and interviewing the experts to determine a course of action. This plan is
complicated by the physical barriers (bodies of water, fences, etc.) and geographic
information (terrain, tree cover, etc.) that the players gather as they experience the
real environment around them.
This version of Environmental Detectives takes 2 to 3 hr to complete, including
introduction, game play, and debriefing, although a teacher might extend or
shorten the game in order to meet his or her classroom needs. This time period was
chosen for a combination of pedagogical and practical reasons. We wanted the
simulation to place realistic constraints on the activity for the students so that they
would have to make decisions about their actions. Students often approach such
Short Question Ust
for
Trichloroethylene
(TeE)
1. What is it?
(TCE) isa volatile
organic compound (VOC) usedprimarily
and commonly detected asan
. .
382 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 383
situations with the idea that they need to get all of the information in order to come
up with a reasonable solution. This is enforced by many school-based activities in
which it is the expectation that students will know all of the information. However,
in real situations it is not practical or perhaps even desirable to spend the effort to
know everything about a system. It is too resource intensive, or sometimes scientif
ically impossible, to obtain complete information. Thus, constraining time forces
the students to make hard decisions about what they can find out and challenges
them to analyze and judge the information that they have to come up with what
they define as the best solution. There were practical considerations as well. This
was an activity that needed to be planned out of normal classroom time (for both of
the audiences that we address below). In surveying audiences with which we might
work, the 2- to 3-hr window was what most professors and teachers advised would
be the right time that they could arrange outside of the nonnal classroom.
The simulation is designed to be flexibly adaptive so that teachers might easily
add extension activities (such as exploring the properties ofTCE, the health effects
of TCE, hydrology, water treatment plans, or similar cases) or remove activities as
local conditions suggest (see Squire, Makinster, Barnett, Barab, & Barab, 2003).
For example, some of the university classes drew parallels to similar engineering
studies done on toxins in the area or further analyzed the research methodology ap
plied during the investigation. Similarly, the high school class engaged in further
reflection on chemical properties of the toxin and further analysis of the watershed
in which the investigation took place.
Participants
In the first phase of the project, we examined Environmental Detectives in three
courses at a private technical university in the eastern United States. One course
was a freshmen environmental engineering course; the other two were sections
from an undergraduate scientific research and writing course, each with 18 to 20
students. In both contexts, the game was used to introduce students to issues
around conducting real-world environmental investigations and was used as a pre
lude for a larger research project. All three classes were 2 hr in length. This article
reports findings synthesized from these classes, with the focus on a small number
of teams from two of the classes. These teams were intended to be representative of
the range of student experiences (including those who successfully engaged in the
necessary practices and those who struggled). Findings from the other course are
reported elsewhere (Klopfer & Squire, in press; Klopfer, Squire, & Jenkins, 2004).
The second phase of the project took place at a nature center in an East Coast
metropolitan area and involved an environmental science class of 18 high school
students. The session involved roughly 20 min of introduction time, 90 min of
game play, and 20 min of debriefing. The pedagogical goals of the game were de
veloped with nature center educators interested in engaging students in more ro
/'
bust activities than traditional field trip scavenger hunt exercises. They hoped that
Environmental Detectives would encourage students to interact with the environ
ment, geography, and history of the site as well as participate in domain-based
problem solving. We chose this group because we wanted to see how students from
a nontechnical background would respond to the activity. In particular, we were in
terested in examining how nonengineering students would use the technology, bal
ance the driving problem behind the curriculum, and construct the problem of un
derstanding toxic flows. Here we primarily focus on two groups as case studies but
also include information from other groups and the entire class debrief. The teams
we chose to focus on again represent the range of experiences demonstrating more
and less successful problem-solving strategies. Although the specifics of the prob
lem were adapted for the nature center site, the scenario was essentially the same
and involved the same information and subject matter, making the scenario and ex
perience comparable to those of the university classes. An overview of the partici
pant populations are shown in Table 1. Although a small number of teams were
selected for case studies, all students participated in the pre-/postsurveys and pre
sentation of cases.
METHODOLOGY
In this study, we used a naturalistic case study methodology (Stake, 1995) to gain a
holistic view of the activity that unfolded during game play, understand how learn
ing occurred through participation in these activities, and remain responsive to un
anticipated issues that might arise during the research. Because we were interested
in accounting for student-computer, student-student, and culture-student interac
tions, we employed quasi-ethnographic techniques designed to capture student ac
tions at the molar level (Goodwin, 1994). Capturing an ecology, including the
many tools, resources, and social structures that characterize any particular context
of activity, is challenging and is still being negotiated in educational research
(Engestrom & Cole, 1997). In describing a situation as a unit of analysis, Cole
(1995) concentrated on practice, activity, contexts, situations, and events. We used
narrative case studies to provide a broad flow of events that take each of these fac
tors into consideration (cf. Hoadley, 2002). We also used discourse analysis (Gee,
TABLE 1
Distribution of Study Participants
Variable University HighSchool
Number of classes 3 I
Total participants S8 18
Team case studies (students) selected 3 (8) 3 (7)
384 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 385
1992) to examine more closely how students constructed and framed problems and
to study relations between class discourses and students' scientific investigations.
Specifically, we investigated (a) the practices students engaged in while participat
ing in Environmental Detectives (i.e., how they integrated real and virtual data in
problem solving and conducting their scientific investigations), (b) how students
constructed the problem (e.g., as well defined or ill defined, authentic or inau
thentic), (c) how investigation in the physical environment mediated students' in
quiry, and (d) what instructional supports were useful in supporting learning.
Data Sources
Observations. Four trained researchers attended each session, and a trained
researcher followed each student team during the game, videotaping a subset of the
teams and documenting student practices in field notes. Consistent with other re
searchers studying problem-based learning environments (e.g., Barron et al., 1998;
Nelson, 1999), we paid special attention to student discourse, examining how stu
dents framed the initial problem, constructed goals of the activity, negotiated infor
mation in groups, planned activities, and developed shared understandings. The
text selected here for analysis was chosen because it was representative of typical
dialogue across a range of responses. We used informal, nonstructured interview
questions during the exercise to confirm observations, clarify students' goals and
intentions, and learn more about students' handheld-mediated activities. Although
the researchers were clearly participant observers in the activity, they attempted to
remain unobtrusive whenever possible.
Interviews and artifacts. We also conducted a 20-min focus group and exit
survey to probe students' experiences in depth to document their thoughts, feel
ings, and attitudes toward the experience. We also recorded students' inscriptions,
physical gestures, and interactions with the Pocket Pc. Additionally, we gathered
and analyzed data emerging from students' off-computer activity, including writ
ten inscriptions some teams used to plan their investigation (cf. Roth, 1996).
Data Analysis
Two researchers viewed and analyzed all researcher field notes, videotapes, and
students' projects using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967)
to generate relevant themes from the data. Consistent with Stake's (1995) respon
sive method, we paid special attention to unexpected and unintended conse
quences, given the exploratory nature of this research. After each round of video
tape viewing, we developed emergent hypotheses, reexamining and refining these
hypotheses as we watched subsequent tapes looking for disconfirming evidence or
counterhypotheses. We then wrote several case studies from both the university
and high school parts of the project to capture the key events or turning points in
students' thinking.
Two ofthe university case studies are included here (although we also include
short excerpts from and mention of other teams, as well as information from an ad
ditional case study in Klopfer, Squire, & Jenkins, 2004). The cases are intended as
a means of conveying a flavor of activity and providing the reader with a basis for
generating contrary interpretations of the activity. Two case studies from the high
school participants are also included (a third additional case is reported in Klopfer,
Squire, & Jenkins, 2004). In the high school cases, we focused specifically on the
discourse of the teams, as well as the presentations and debriefs in order to under
stand how students framed the problem and generated meaning in situ. Given our
observations with the university students in this study-that a driving contradic
. tion existed between the dual needs of doing desktop research and collecting sam
ples-we decided to focus on this issue in greater depth in this part.
For each of the case studies we provide the synthesis of a discourse analysis
(roughly 15 pages per team and not all included here), an analysis of how language
"enacts activities, perspectives, and identities" (Gee, 1999, p. 4-5). Researchers
transcribed the interactions of teams that were representative (typical) of talk
across the range of -successful and unsuccessful teams. Consistent with Gee
(1999), we focused on how language-specifically word choice, cues, syntactic
and prosodic markers, cohesion devices, discourse organization, contextualization
signals, and thematic organization in language--created the activity. Essentially,
this analysis is toward understanding meaning, how it is made, enacted, and repre
sented in situ. We specifically looked for moments when meaning was negotiated
and shared understandings were mobilized to solve problems, and when meanings
generated further action. Specifically, this methodology allowed us to gain insight
into how participants framed the problem, constructed the reason behind the activ
ity, and negotiated problem-solving strategies in situ (e.g., Barab & Kirshner,
2001).
RESULTS
The following case studies describe the results of our design experiment. We start
by describing an illustrative example, a case study of a typical team. In this first
case we outline the process of their investigation as they notably engaged in (a)
privileging quantitative data; (b) framing the problem as a unidimensional one of
"tracking down the toxin to its source" as opposed to a multidimensional problem
involving probable cause, potential health and legal effects, and suggested remedi
ation strategies; (c) integrating prior knowledge of the environment with students'
reasoning; (d) creating emergent sampling strategies, such as triangulation; and (e)
"voting with their feet" as they decided which problem-solving path to pursue. We
. I
386 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
then present contrasting case studies of Environmental Detectives in action and fo
cus on how the activity unfolded across teams. In particular, we examine how stu
dents constructed the activity and then use a discourse analysis method as a basis
for showing how the activity was constructed in different settings. We hypothe
sized that augmented reality simulation games would be a potentially powerful
emerging medium for education in contextual settings.
University Case Studies
After a classroom briefing introducing the problem, students met at the center of
campus and learned to use their GPS and Pocket Pc. Most teams immediately
drilled a sample and then picked a direction to move to, based on their theories of.
where toxins might have originated, concern for downstream consequences of the
toxin's spread, or, in some cases, just random guessing. Teams generally negoti
ated where to take the second sample from; in some cases, a team leader, usually
the-person with the Pocket PC, would lead the way. Across all teams, participants
frequently negotiated and debated where to go (as evinced through their talk
below).
One team of three students, tailed by a researcher, headed up away from the
river and toward campus. One of the students inquired, "How many samples do we
need?" It was not clear whether the question was addressed to the researcher or the
rest of the team, but no one responded. The student holding the Pocket PC had pre
vious GPS experience and started to guide the team. He drilled for one sample and
then walked to nearby locations to take two more samples, the maximum number
of concurrent samples permitted. He chose a triangular configuration, though
when another student asked why he chose this arrangement, he cited no particular
reason.
Students retraced their steps as they waited for the required 3 min between sam
ple drilling and reading. Finally the sample was retrieved. The reading was 88. An
other student asked if 88 was good or bad. One student hypothesized that the num
ber could be a percentage, but no one could answer definitively. They decided to
collect more data.
As they walked to collect their two drill rigs (used to take samples), a student
not holding the Pocket PC asked what the data looked like. The student with the
handheld described their current readings by pointing to three locations in physical
space (as opposed to showing on the handheld) and citing the readings. Students
again debated the meanings of these readings. One student hypothesized that the
readings were in parts per million. The student holding the Pocket PC suggested
that they should go toward the "higher numbers," pointing into the distance. They
walked several hundred yards through several buildings toward the higher number
and placed more drills.
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 387
This pattern of drilling to find the source before considering the meaning of
numbers was similar across teams as suggested by this exchange, taken from an
other team:
Lisa: The reading is 4.
Ben: It's obviously good. Come on now.
Lisa: I don't think it is good.
Ben: It's obviously good.
Lisa: Four. Like 4 is a bad reading. Like 4 on a scale of I to 5. Four is real bad.
Ben: On a scale of I to 50 though, 4 is pretty damn good.
Mel: True, but what is this scale? We don't know that.
Ben: We don't know that.
Lisa: We have no idea. It could even be that the top one is the best.
Mel: Ok. So we need to dig another well.
Ben: Let's get this one first [referring to an already dug well].
Most teams initially constructed the activity as a pattern recognition search for the
source of the toxin, opting to drill more samples to define some pattern rather than
consult documents or experts who could definitively tell them what levels were of
concern, as they were informed at the onset of the activity. They avoided conduct
ing the desktop research that environmental scientists describe as critical to these
investigations. This exchange, which was typical of most teams, also reflects the
amount of negotiation and debate behind sampling strategies. Most teams (typical
of prominent discourse patterns in the class and in the institution) were argumenta
tive in thinking through results (e.g., "Come on now").
After several minutes, the readings from this second round of drill placements
returned from the lab. One student noted that the new readings were very high in
one direction. They walked in the direction of the higher readings, as if following a
trail or scent, pausing briefly to interview a virtual staff member in environmental
policy, who happened to be nearby. The interview yielded little information, but it
did reveal that they could conduct a second interview with a TCE supplier from fa
cilities at a new location across campus, which they needed to visit within the next
half hour because the informant was leaving for another meeting (this event was
then "triggered" on their Pocket PC). They decided to immediately go to the new
building although there was no discussion about what information they hoped to
find, or hypothesizing its anticipated value. Along the way they looked at the
emerging gradient and one student hypothesized that the concentration was likely
to be higher on the other side of the building (the one they hadn't visited yet).
The second interview revealed where TCE was used on campus, and the student
holding the Pocket PC summarized the information for the others. Meanwhile, the
team took another reading. One student (not holding the Pocket PC) realized that
the highest concentration appeared to be surrounding one building and suggested
388 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
that they should drill more wells there. Another student dismissed this idea, assur
ing them that they had already sufficiently pinpointed the source of the leakage to
that building. Using the information from the toxin supplier combined with preex
isting knowledge of the activities near that building (the university machine shop is
located there), he correctly identified the source of the toxin and suggested that
they obtain interviews to help interpret their data. It is worth noting that although
they had spent nearly 50% of their time already, the team did not know what units
the readings were in (and indeed, one student hypothesized incorrectly that they
were a percentage), what levels ofTCE were dangerous, how likely the TCE was
to spread throughout the environment (including into a nearby river), or what legal
repercussions the university might face if the TCE were to leak off of university
property. Most teams (all but 1 or 20f the approximately 12 teams that we studied)
had similar problem-solving strategies, although 1 team, notably, stopped at a
computer and used Google to find a good deal of information on TCE (which was
applicable in this simulation that used realistic data).
Seeing another interview nearby, they headed in that direction. One student no
ticed the time and paused, causing the team to stop. He suggested that they use
their last 15 min wisely. The Pocket PC changed hands briefly to a different team
member but was quickly returned to the student who had held it most of the time
because there was some confusion as to where they were headed next. After sev
eral minutes of circling the building, they finally accessed the interview, which ex
plained how groundwater flows through campus. Here they learned that the
groundwater was not used for drinking.
As the students headed back to class, they discussed the implications of their
findings. Reviewing their documents, they learned that planting trees could miti
gate some of the effects of TCE. One student looked at the building where they hy
pothesized the toxin had originated and then back at the river, declaring that by the
time the pollution gets to the river the pollution is likely to be highly reduced (al
though they had no concrete evidence on which to base this assertion).
Debriefing. Each team presented their findings before the class. This team,
like most, had pinned the location of the spill down to a particular building based
on following a gradient that they had observed (which was correct) and theorizing
that the spill had come from the machine shop. They argued that the spill was not a
problem because the groundwater was not a source for drinking water, and the river
was too far from the source of the pollution to be a problem. They recommended
planting trees to mitigate the problem and monitoring the situation over time. They
noted that this solution would cause little alarm in the community and would not
destroy the only grassy area on campus.
Cross-team discussions. Most of the 12teams that we studied made similar
findings. Most relied heavily on sampling, and roughly 75% ofthe teams accurately
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 389
determined the location in the time allotted. Most teams also suggested the politi
cally expedient answer of planting trees and monitoring the situation because they
sawno immediate legal or health threat. Only 3 teams, which all focused on collect
ing interview data, correctly surmised that regardless of whether the spill was an im
mediate health hazard it was a legal threat and should be cleaned up to avoid Environ
mental Protection Agency fines. Students across all the teams were very sensitive of
thepolitical ramifications of falsely calling too much attention to the problem, given
the fact that Building 3 was centrally located on campus. This concern about unduly
drawing negative attention to the university was introduced in the cover story but ea
gerly taken up by players as a driving factor behind any solutions. Successful teams
gathered both samples and interview data, recursively examining what was known,
reframing the research questions, and gathering new data.
For example, the following description from another team began as they were
taking their second reading. Instead of immediately trying to pinpoint the precise
location of the spill, they located an interview with a faculty member to tell them
more about TCE while they waited for lab results:
Jenny: It just said that the results of the lab said "30," so it might be 30 parts per
cubic feet.
Steve: That is not as bad as the military base in Cape Cod, so just remember
that it can be nasty or something. [summarizing the text from the inter
view to the team]: So what do you want to know ... TCE is found all
over place ... a spill in Illinois ... So how fast does it move? Depends on
the soil and whatnot, 1.5 to 7 feet per day, ooooh ... [Repeating aloud,
1.5 to 7 feet per day. Bill writes down the numbers.]
Jenny: That's not a concentration.
Bill: It doesn't sound like a rate of flow; it's a rate of spill.
Steve: Well it just said the result from the lab is 30 so it might be ... 30 cubic
feet ... I don't know.
Bill: Cubic feet per day doesn't make sense either. It ought to be a ... rate of
spill.
Steve: [continues summarizing] We need to build a model of how TCE moves
through the groundwater ... lots of things to take into account ... You
have a certain mass of stuff that's been spilled, and it's covering a larger
and larger region every day because of spread .... As a rule of thumb you
might assume that it spreads at a rate of 150 feet per year.
Bill: Whoa, whoa, whoa per year?
Steve: Per year.
Bill: Ok, 150 feet per year. [Writes the numbers down] Ok. So [pausing to
think], decaying at about half of its concentration. So if you start with
100 parts per billion that's per ... 50 parts per billion at 150 feet per year.
The 30 and 70 could be possible.
390 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
This interaction, although less representative of what occurred, shows a more pro
ductive intellectual interplay between primary and secondary data sources. Right
away they queried the meaning of the readings, speculating that it could be "parts
per cubic feet," a concentration that they noted compares favorably to the readings
found in Cape Cod (a case study they had learned about via their interview). They
also read that they need to "create a model of how TCE moves through the ground
water," and subsequently compared their readings to the data they were presented
from the case study.
Next, Jenny added that they could use this data to pinpoint the source of the
spill, but new information about phytoremediation (a process of planting trees to
remove toxins from the soil) changed the topic:
Jenny: The 30 should tell us something about the source of the spill being
closer to the ...
Bill: Yeah, I think so.
Steve: [reading] What should we do about remediation TCE? Planting trees,
phytoremediation.
Bill: [writing, reading? aloud what he writes] Plant trees to suck TCE out. So
we're nervous about the effects of TCE on the environment. We don't
know that TCE is, like, infecting trees. We have higher readings, which
is contradictory to ...
Steve: Higher reading where there's less trees. No more trees.
Jenny: Because it's sucking the TCE out.
Steve: Hold out there's more information. It's expensive and you could get wa
ter treatment part ... something about backyard. [As Steve finishes read
ing, the team begins walking.]
Jenny: Pumps are the best because trees don't do anything.
Here, introducing the concept of phytoremediation did two things: First, it made
the team realize that the existence of vegetation could be affecting their results.
Second, it introduced the issue of "what to do about TCE." Unlike other teams, this
team realized that phytoremediation is a partial remedy at best.
However, the team also realized that they knew very little about TCE as a chem
ical, its health effects, or what might have caused this spill. Bill began by suggest
ing that they drill more samples, but the team realized that this would not help them
learn about TCE. They went back and forth between querying one another on what
they knew, what they needed to know, and where they might find the information:
Bill: We could just start digging holes to get more information.
Jenny: Since we're going to the classroom, let's ask Eric [one of the in-game
characters whom they can interview].
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 391
Steve: What is he going to know about TCE?
Jenny: Who knows ...
Bill: We never learned what TCE is at all, did we? We have no ideas what its
effects are on the environment.
Jenny: Trees suck it up.
Steve: For all we know, TCE is just another form of water particle-we don't
know that there's anything bad about it.
Steve raised a critical point here; the team was not exactly certain why TCE is a
dangerous chemical. They knew that there have been other spills, and they knew
that trees absorb some amounts of it, but they were not sure in what form or con
centrations it is actually dangerous (if at all).
In the next exchange, Bill connected these concerns to his existing knowledge
of the Charles River:
Bill: We know that it's in the Charles, which is already disgusting. It's possi
ble that TCE is such a ridiculously small effect compared to the big
mess of the Charles, and I have friends by the way who study the
Charles River and are not impressed. So, that's a possibility. We also
know that the water isn't used for drinking ...
Jenny: We used to go canoeing on the Charles River. And we always had to
watch out. People fell out of their canoe their eyes were stinging and
stuff.
This exchange illustrates a common phenomenon in augmented reality games.
Facing gaps in their knowledge about chemicals, health effects, or the history of
their local space, players would frequently begin taking what they already knew
(or thought they knew) about the environment (in this case, the fact that the Charles
River is polluted and not used for drinking) and applying it to the problem at hand.
Given the importance of activating prior knowledge in learning for deep under
standing, this tendency to build connections between the game space and their ex
isting, lived knowledge of the space was encouraging.
In the debriefing, this team made the case that there were significant concentra
tions ofTCE in the groundwater and it had been there for at least a few years, as ev
idenced by the size of the plume (the three-dimensional disbursement of TCE
through the groundwater). They believed that it would soon be in the Charles
River, but they were not sure of the precise health effects. They believed that it was
a cause for concern and that some sort of pumping would be required to remove the
toxin. They were one of the few teams to advocate cleaning the groundwater rather
than "planting trees and monitoring the situation."
393
392 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
High School Case Studies
college students had framed the problem as one of collecting samples to ob
t?e one correct solution of where the spill occurred, as opposed to an investiga
tion into a. socially problem. However the problem-solving approach
tended to differ among high school participants. As such, we focused the subse
of high school usage on weighing the potential value of inter
VIew data m context with the quantitative data. Also, given the broader audience in
these. cases, we paid additional attention to the quantitative reasoning applied by
the high school students to understanding the patterns in the data. In these case
we focused more specifically on team talk to examine the processes by
which problem was framed. Across the teams we examined, four main motifs
in the (a) negotiation of the environment in the investigative process;
(b) within- and intergroup interpretation of the problem as gathering information
to complete a puzzle; (c) discussion and problem solving that integrated the physi
cal world, paper-based resources, and personal digital assistant (PDA)-mediated
resoUfl?eS! (4) emergence of intergroup power dynamics. This section reports
results pnmanly from two teams, which were chosen to represent the ends of the
of responses. One team (Team 1) struggled with making sense of the
quantitative data patterns as well as integrating the quantitative and qualitative in
formation. The team (Team 2), although unable to fully address the problem,
significant success in finding patterns in the data and identifying
where additional research was needed. In this section we use a brief discourse anal
ysis to examine emergent learning practices.
the passage, Team 1 discussed the best method for reaching an in
terview WIth an expert who was in the horse farm. Several physical structures en
tered into their thinking:
1. Stacey: There's a fence there. I can't get over it.
2. Gina: Then I don't know what we're going to do. We're stumped. Let's call
the guy [facilitator on the walkie-talkie] so we can find out what we're
doing.
3. Stacey: What does it look like?
4. Gina: We're close. That's the thing.
5. Stacey: Ok, fine. Can we go over this [barbed wire] fence?
6. Gina: I don't know.
7. Stacey: Maybe we can get on the other side by walking somewhere else.
8. Louis: Maybe we can walk the fence. No, there are trees.
and affordances immediately had an impact on stu
dents problem-solvmg. process. The constraints of the environment, namely
fences (1,5,8), barbed WIre (5), and trees (8) guided their problem-solving path. All
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS
of Gina's statements were declarative, assessing their progress and directing activ
ity, whereas other students raised ideas as suggestions, couching them with qualifi
ers (i.e., "maybe"). The problem was about designing strategies in relation to local
environmental affordances.
Roughly 10 min into the activity, students in Team I had negotiated the particu
lars of the environment, with Gina having taken a lead in defining team work. They
had conducted their first virtual interview and now met another team (Team 3),
who asked them how many interviews they had gathered. A shared understanding
emerged whereby the point of the activity was framed as collecting "boxes" (the
screen icons that correspond to virtual interviews), akin to a scavenger hunt:
9. Girl (Team 3): How many [interviews] did you get so far?
10. Louis: None, nothing.
11. Stacey: We've only gotten one box. How many have you got?
12. Girl (Team 3): One so far. We were going for another one.
13. Boy (Team 3): Three. Oh. You meant the boxes?
14. Gina: Did you dig?
15. Boy (Team 3): Yeah.
16. Gina: Can you dig anywhere?
17. Boy (Team 3): Yeah. I think so-I did.
18. Gina: Cool. We got an interview. That's all we did. We don't have
much time. We have to go.
The girl from Team 3 initiated the conversation by asking "how many they got so
far," framing the problem as one of collecting the most interviews as efficiently as
possible and establishing the activity as one of collecting "boxes." Gina turned the
topic to digging, but Team 3 offered little information on what they had dug. Gina
did not pursue the conversation and declared that the team was running out of time
and needed to go.
Shortly afterwards Team 1 set out in pursuit of an additional site at which to dig.
Along the way they discussed the readings that they had received thus far:
Gina: So we're digging a well at 144 ... [reading the coordinates]
Stacey: And we're near the chickens. [writing down notes]
Gina: Sample sent to field lab. What does that mean?
Stacey: Is there a location?
Gina: Oh no, what did we do?
[Pocket PC sound effect indicating a sample is available]
Gina: Reading at whatever is 27. What does that mean? Reading at 14094 is
27. Whatever that means.
Stacey: So I' m just going to say we dug a well at this spot and it was 27.
Gina: Yeah.
394
SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
Stacey: Well, actually it was that spot. [pointing to where they dug]
Gina: Yeah. And it got sent to the field lab.
Here we see that they were collecting additional data, but the incoming data
were interpreted merely as a stream of numbers. The students did not relate the
readings to previous readings or to the spatial arrangement of the readings. Here
they also did not know what the numbers mean, but they did not identify that they
needed additional resources to ascribe this meaning. We compare this with Team 2
upon receiving their first data:
Abbey: The reading is 10.
Maya: Ok.
Abbey: Wegot a well reading of 10 so nowwe should find someone who can tell
us what that means 'cause we don't know.
Team 2 immediately identified that they didn't know what the readings mean
and should find someone that could help them with this interpretation. They went
in search of a virtual character who could possibly give them this information. A
while later they got the interview they were looking for, and one of the researchers
asked them about what they got out of that interview:
Abbey: Information about wells and sending water samples to labs. But we need
to get information about reading, like what the reading means. 10 ... I
have no idea what that means.
They were able to identify that this interview gave them helpful information, but it
didn't give them the information that they needed to provide some absolute mean
ing to the reading of 10. A while later they obtained an additional data sample from
a virtual well:
Abbey: Reading 56! That's a lot higher than the 10. Ok '"
Maya: 15 [announcing a third new reading]
Abbey: 15. So it seems to be closer, higher when we're near the water. And
we're at a higher elevation here too. Do you want to head back?
Here Team 2 had obtained and interpreted information based on three readings
(10, 15, and 56). They understood the geographic relationship of these points, such
that the one that was closest to the water source was the highest (having the highest
concentration of TCE). Additionally, they looked at the physical landscape, show
ing that the readings were highest at a high point on the landscape, which may have
had implications for where the water flowed.
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 395
As the teams worked their way toward the end of the project, they tried to inter
pret their findings and decide what they were going to say when they p r e ~ e n t e d
their recommendations and evidence. On the way back, Team 2 met up with an
other team (Team 4), and they discussed what they had found:
Abbey: So what do you guys think, you know? About buying the land?
Nick (Team 4): I didn't really find any overwhelming evidence that there is TCE
or any other toxic chemical.
Abbey: Did you say you took just one reading?
Nick: Yeah.
Abbey: What did you get?
Nick: 173?
Abbey: It has a question mark. Wait, what does that ... Where did you?
[interprets the information in contrast to her own computer, and
perhaps determines that although Team 4 has drilled one well,
they have not taken a sample from that well, thus they have no real
data]
Brett: I'd buy the property, because there's enough property ...
Abbey: But if these animals are getting sick ...? I mean, liver problems?
Something's up though. That librarian we talked to seemed dis
gruntled, didn't she?
Here we see Team 2 had collected more quantitative data and made progress in
interpreting that information. Additionally they had obtained interviews from the
characters and integrated that information as well (referring to the disgruntled li
brarian). For Team 4 there was no connection between the disjointed (to them) in
formation.
Similarly, we pick up Team 1 as they headed back to the lab with the informa
tion that they had collected. They continued to struggle with making sense of the
data:
Gina: I am so happy that we have at least one box.
Louis: Yeah.
Gina: And we have that it is the TCE chemical. That is what they think it is, so
we have something to say. I am quite happy about that.
Although they are happy about having collected their information, they had not
been able to connect any of the pieces, either during the investigation or as they at
tempted to offer summative explanations.
The teams gathered at the end of the experience to give their recommendations
and share evidence to the entire group. The teacher selected some teams to make
396 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
oral presentations. One of the members of Team 4 (whom Team 2 had run into be
fore coming back) presented their recommendation:
Nick: Ok, I think that the state should buy the land because there's studies that
shown that if there's TCE here it can be cleaned up effectively. TCE and
CT (Carbon Tetrachloride) and whole bunch of other chemicals can be
cleaned up effectively. So I see no overwhelming reason not to buy it be
cause the problem is solvable.
He made this recommendation without knowing anything about the data indicating
what was a c t ~ a l l y there, but surmising that whatever it was could be cleaned up.
When asked If they had found any significant amount of any chemicals, he com
mented, "No, we didn't ... Large amounts of TCE ... I guess it's only harmful if
it's large amounts or large exposures to it ... " Their teacher then asked them if they
could define what "large" was. Nick responded, "No, no. We know that large is just
big." .When probed further for their evidence of where they learned that the prob
lem could be solved, they cited a single interview:
Nick: The librarians down at the library said that at Cape Cod ... I guess there
was a similar problem at the Massachusetts Military Reservation ... and
they cleaned it up. In I1linois also ...
Their case hinged on the recommendations of one interview that they had found.
Subsequently the reliability of this interview was questioned by one of the mem
bers of Team 2:
Maya: The only thing about the librarian is that she kept saying "I think ..." so
it's kinda like we weren't sure if her information was exactly accurate.
That was just something that I noticed.
Here Maya, from Team 2, showed that she was reading deeply into the information
that she had found, even questioning the language with which the librarian pre
sented the data. Their more thorough analysis and interpretation became evident in
their recommendations:
Abbey: Ok, well, we didn't really come to definite conclusion. We found read
ings. One of them was right over by the water right before you go into
the tunnel and we got a reading of 50 [rounded from 56]. And our other
ones were 10 and 15. So those ones are away from the water, but we
couldn't find anyone who could give us information about what these
numbers mean, so we didn't come to any conclusion, because we're not
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 397
exactly sure how to interpret those, so we're not sure if the land should
be bought.
Their evidence showed patterns in the data and also identified the gaps in their
information, specifically citing items where they needed additional information.
Unlike other teams, Team 2 was very aware of the limitations of their knowledge
and structured their recommendations accordingly.
Team 1 did not participate extensively in the presentations but did describe
some of their thought processes during the investigation:
Stacey: It was kind of confusing at first.
Gina: It kinda seems like you're supposed to go on a certain path. 'Cause it
kinda seems like we took a reading and went to the next site, and it gave
us information about taking readings. But we'd already done that. It's
just, we had to stop ...
Through this dialogue the team was indicating that part of their failure came from
seeing the process as totally linear. They described their experience as one in
which they followed a path through each of the different "points" in the game, as
opposed to being a dynamic process that evolved over time as they collected more
information and interpreted that information.
How each team perceived the role of the physical environment varied greatly,
contributing to their success or failure in the investigation. Those that saw the envi
ronment as a barrier, or that simply couldn't incorporate the real surroundings,
struggled, whereas those who could "read" their physical surroundings incorpo
rated them with the virtual information that they collected to create a better re
sponse. Here we follow Team 1 as they used real maps, the actual environment, and
the Environmental Detectives-based maps interchangeably. They had just col
lected an interview and were now about to get another one. The students were con
cerned that they did not have enough information to solve the problem adequately.
We pick up the discussion as they decided what to do next:
19. Stacey: Let's go to that one [pointing to the learning center]. We just traipsed
through a field.
20. Louis: I like how he [the character in the video] was standing up there [point
ing toward the house] and reading it.
21. Gina: Yeah, I know.
22. Louis: He got to stand at the house, and we had to stand in the water [in the
field].
23. Stacey: I know. I am so wet.
24. Louis: My socks are so wet.
398 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
25. Camera:We should head back soon.
26. Gina: Yeah, it is 12:50.
27. Louis: How far away is the thing [the location of the debrief]?
28. Gina: Where do we have to go again?
29. Stacey: Alan Morgan Center? That is ...
30. Louis: [looking around] Not around here.
31. Stacey: Right here [points at paper map].
32. Gina: And we're right here [points at pocket pc].
33. Stacey: That's not bad.
34. Louis: But we have to go through the tunnel.
35. Stacey: How are we supposed to make recommendations?
36. Gina: I don't know.
37. Louis: Just read off of the information that we got.
38. Gina: I thought we could dilly-dally but we actually did work.
39. Louis: For once.
Stacey initiated the conversation by suggesting that they go to the learning center,
as the team was tired of "traipsing through a field," which "got their socks wet."
Louis noted that their path back to the nature center would take them through the
tunnel (34), a feature of the environment that earlier had been the cause of consid
erable discussion, as a group of birds had flown out and scared the team. Stacey
noted their lack of information (they had located several interviews but had dug
few, if any, wells) and asked the team how they were supposed to make recommen
dations (35). As in the other exchanges, Stacey queried the team for strategies and
Gina gave the response (36). Louis (37) suggested that they just "read off their in
formation." Gina summed up the team's dilemma: They had thought that the exer
cise would be relatively thoughtless-that they could "just dilly-dally"-but in
stead they "actually did work," (38) which Louis agreed with (39). Students used
maps (19, 31), the real environment (20,30), and PDA resources as tools (32) for
communicating.
Later this team encountered another visitor to the site (clearly not from their
class). The visitor asked what they were doing:
Stacey: We're trying to find if there are any toxins here. Do you know of any
toxins?
Visitor: Toxins. I don't know of any toxins.
Gina: It is in the game. I think it is all in the game.
The members of this team were negotiating the reality of the situation. The one
team member asked the visitor if he knew anything about toxins, as if the informa
tion were real and may be accessible outside of the game. It was the other team
member who suggested it was probably just in the game.
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 399
In another discussion, one of the members of Team 2 was pondering the dynam
ics of the game:
Abbey: It would be cool if there were real people. You've heard of Sturbridge
Village [a local living history museum]? They make candles and stuff. It
would be cool if there were real people you could ask your own ques
tions, you know?
This statement seems to suggest that she understood the simulated nature of the en
vironment, that the game enacted this situation just as actors do in a mock histori
cal site and that the students had some interest in expanding the experience beyond
the virtual.
After the game and debrief were completed, the students were asked to reflect
on their experience. One of the boys from Team 4 responded:
Nick: We didn't get to read everything, because we were just going [snaps
three times-boom boom boom] ... running and getting chased by a
guy with a knife ... well, it was metaphorical knife. Maybe we could
have all of the people in one room and talk to them all like around differ
ent places in the room.
Their teacher asked if they thought that would have been better than the outdoor
experience:
Nick: It would be more efficient, but maybe the point of it to go out and walk
around and see everything too. I don't know what the objective is, but if
the objective is to get all the info real quick, then the best thing to do it
here [in one room].
This team expressed that they didn't know what the purpose of the outdoor portion
was and that if they were just expected to learn the information, then it would have
been more efficient to give it to them. This failure to put the different pieces to
gether-the physical environment, along with the virtual information-seemed to
have contributed to this team's failure to make sense of the situation. One of the
girls from Team 2 responded to the same question about whether it would be better
to put everyone in one room. Maya suggested some things she may have learned
from doing the activity outside in the real space: "The way the water traveled? If
we were up on the hill and the water would go down ... So we thought if it was the
water contaminating down... " As the team debriefed, some students expressed
value in working in the real-world environment, although these understandings
were relatively shallow, showing the limitations of this particular enactment for
producing learning.
f/
400 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
CROSS-CASE DISCUSSION
These cases suggest both the opportunities and challenges to using handheld tech
nologies to situate learners in environmental engineering practices. Augmented re
ality simulations can create a compelling context for environmental investigations.
Taking learners into the field to conduct a virtual simulation enabled learners to
gain a situated experience of environmental science, although the value of this was
not always clear to students. This section further explores the significance of the
activity's occurrence in a real-world location, exploring the role of the environ
ment in students' activity, challenges in conducting virtual investigations, and the
role of reflections on "failure" in learning within augmented reality simulations.
Student Practices in Environmental Detectives
A primary goal guiding the design of this project was to recreate core environmen
tal engineering practices (balancing multiple data sources and the evolving, com
peting needs of an investigation) within a context where students could test out
new ideas and identities without fear of failure. The university and high school stu
dents encountered different sets of difficulties in trying to mount their investiga
tions. Yet these different deficiencies led to similar failures in mirroring environ
mental engineering practice and ultimately determining a solution to the problem.
The university students were driven almost exclusively by the collection of wa
ter quality data from the wells. Most college students collected samples at the start
ing location or traveled to where the initial reading was found. When students did
conduct interviews, it was because interviews were (not coincidentally) located
near desirable sampling sites. In fact, each team collected between 6 and 10 water
samples before they ever determined what the units meant or what level was con
sidered toxic. This problem (not knowing toxic levels) was often discussed but dis
missed in favor of collecting more samples, perhaps hoping that a pattern would
emerge that would put the readings in perspective. In short, wherever there was a
problem, the answer was to drill more samples.
The holes in students' understanding were made more evident when they pre
sented. their assessment and remediation plans. For example, several teams re
ported that the TCE was unlikely to reach nearby surface water because it was "far
away," even though they did not know how fast the TCE was moving or how long it
had been in the ground (which might indicate that it had already spread to the
river). Other teams made assumptions about the use of groundwater for drinking
water, though they had no evidence to support these assertions.
When collecting water quality samples, the majority of university teams who
actually collected data used a "warmer/colder" strategy for locating the source.
They would take two samples and move in the direction of the sample with the
higher concentration. This method proved to be largely successful, though it was
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 401
susceptible to getting stuck on local minima (due to local variability, random varia
tion in the underlying model, or a smaller secondary spill built into the game) and
was very data intensive. Two other strategies that were employed were triangula
tion and concentric circles. Triangulation (perhaps suggested by the three simulta
neous wells limitation in the game) involved drilling three wells in some relatively
small area and then moving in the direction of the highest concentration. The con
centric circles strategy was designed to start at the original site of contamination
and then move out from there, sampling along different radii. Neither of these
strategies was more successful in the context of this game, though they might have
involved fewer wells and been less susceptible to local variation.
These findings suggest that games afford good opportunities for complex prob
lem solving, but that they also need to scaffold players' thinking and action. The
importance of supporting academic game play with other media (books, texts,
video) is something well known within the literature of games in social studies ed
ucation (Squire, 2006; Wentworth & Lewis, 1973). Commercial video games,
such as Ninja Gaiden or Viewtiful Joe, are structured so that they can be learned by
their players, with levels functioning as essentially embedded tutorials (Gee, 2003;
Squire, 2005). Other times game tools, resources, and characters function as em
bedded scaffolding for players, suggesting ways of thinking to the player. Aca
demic games such as Environmental Detectives might do well to use these same
techniques in their designs. Although Environmental Detectives incorporates
many game mechanics and features, building them in a way to scaffold thinking
may be a productive route for future designs. Regardless, additional scaffolding,
whether in game or included via teachers or peers, is needed to further develop sci
entific thinking.
Constructing the Problem
Students often recognized shortcomings of their information, citing the lack of
data on flow rates or toxic levels, but then proceeded to make recommendations
based upon these incorrect or incomplete assumptions. Regardless of this informa
tion, the proposed solutions were fairly consistent: Because this is largely a drink
ing water problem, and because humans do not drink the groundwater, the solution
is to plant trees (which have been found to have a measurable, though minimal, ef
fect on reducing groundwater levels of TCE) and subsequently monitor the situa
tion. We have classified this solution as the "political solution't-s-on the surface it
seems like it should satisfy the parties involved (it does not alarm the population,
detract from the aesthetics of campus, or call attention to any environmental
wrongdoings), but it would be largely ineffective against any real problem. In real
ity this problem has no one solution that could satisfy everyone and address the
real environmental and legal concerns: The pollution is likely to eventually flow
into the river, which might upset environmentalists, and although it might not have
..
402 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
real consequences, any amount flowing off the campus property has
legal implications. Students seemed unable or unwilling to make the hard trade
offs and address this solution, likely because they were not used to these authentic
problems with real trade-offs.
The high school students, described in the second part of the study, also strug
gled to understand the nature of the environmental investigations, but in a different
way. Indeed, the high school students generally struggled to balance the need to
gather information with drilling and sampling (as environmental engi
neers. predict). These students typically defined the activity as a scavenger
hunt.m the moment-to-moment goal was to collect interviews as quickly as
possible.. me.aning. was negotiated through both intragroup and intergroup
commumca.tlOns (i.e., Dialogue Lines 10-18). Through intergroup exchanges, stu
negotiated a?d agreed upon a focus of the activity of one as collecting infor
mation, as one might collect pieces of a puzzle. How and why the activity got
framed as a scavenger hunt (which is unique and contradicts earlier case studies)
was the of several factors, including the nature of the field trip and students'
past (as by Gina and Louis's comments that this "actually
was work, Dialogue Lines 38-39).
Across cases, students failed to discern what information was needed for an ef
fective solution. Both groups believed that there was one right answer to the prob
lem and that conducting an investigation was merely a matter of tracking down the
of toxin. For the engineering students, this problem was about identify
mg the physical source. the science students, it was a scavenger
hunt to collect as much information about the spill and toxin as possible. Across
b?th cases, students playing Environmental Detectives initially tried simple strate
gies on conceptions of environmental science investigations. The task
recruited very different strategies among different populations of students, and the
game play served as a way for teachers to discuss students' beliefs about environ
science investigations. This suggests that in designing new educational the
ones, platforms, and interventions, developers should undergo rapid iterations
with a variety of students to understand how problems are constructed and inhab
ited by players.
suggests that the creation of a problem not only should include particular
design features (is novel, op?ortunities for creative expression, helps
a problem) but also interact Withstudents' prior knowledge, drives, moti
vations, mterests, and goals in pedagogically desirable ways (Blumenfeld et al.
1991). We find value in doing multiple iterations across different groups to under
stand how that problem is taken up in different contexts, and to theorize authentic
ity, cognitive complexity, intrigue, and hence pedagogical value not as properties
of the problem, but as emergent phenomena occurring at the intersection of user
object, and context (see also Barab, Squire, & Dueber, 2(00). Interest
ingly, much of the foundational work in motivation that problem- and pro
403
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS
ject-based learning advocates developed their theories upon was originally derived
from games, suggesting fruitful opportunities for reintroducing gaming conven
tions into such learning environments (cf. Malone & Lepper, 1987; Squire, 2002).
Role of the physical Environment
Across both high school and university students, we found that the teams had rela
tively little difficulty negotiating the hybrid real and virtual components of aug
mented reality and within minutes were diving into this mixed-reality environ
ment. Students mapped virtual data onto the real-world context or pointed to
locations in the real world and described the concentrations at those locations us
ing data and information off of the handhelds. Using maps and computers, they
continuously worked across the spatially distributed problem-solving context.
More importantly, students often used knowledge of the surroundings to solve the
problem. The college students, who were more familiar with the environment than
the high school students (who were on a field trip), investigated sites of known
printing presses, metal shops, and other places with large machinery, which had
been identified as being associated with TCE early on in the investigation. College
students used hypotheses of the activities in each building to guide their thinking,
yet they were less personally connected to their surroundings.
Situating students' activity in the physical environment where physical space is
part of the learning experience may be the strongest pedagogical value of Environ
mental Detectives. Across groups, students drew upon their existing knowledge of
the terrain, chemicals, or environmental problems associated with the area. The
ease with which students synthesized infonnation from the physical and virtual en
vironments suggests that a pedagogical benefit of augmented realities may be in
how they encourage learners to draw upon existing knowledge and apply new in
formation to understanding the world around them.
The high school cases show how the environment can function as a constrainer
of action, as in the first high school case, where students had to traverse rough ter
rain. In this way, environmental constraints affected their problem-solving paths to
an even greater extent. From the first challenge of climbing a fence to the final
challenge of negotiating a tunnel, students' problem solving was concrete, and spe
cific environmental constraints (fences and trees), affordances (such as the tunnel),
and local demands (time considerations) were a part of students' thinking. Stu
dents rarely, however, used the physical environment to talk about toxin spreads, as
they framed the activity as collecting and synthesizing information rather than
gathering data, constructing a narrative, and designing a solution.
Consistent with instructional goals, students' environmental investigations
were deeply embedded in the particulars of this physical location. Fences, trees,
fields, tunnels, and marshes played a role in students' thinking and problem solv
ing. In most instances, students used these features as navigation devices, seam
404 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
lessly thinking across partners and other classmates, paper-based resources (e.g.,
paper maps), and Pocket PC-mediated data. Students used the physical environ
ment in deciding which interviews to get (few teams, except the most physically
proactive, got a critical interview that was located at the top of a steep hill) but
rarely used the physical environment to talk about toxin spreads, as they framed the
activity as one of information collection and synthesis. Those teams who framed
the problem as a dynamic investigation tied to the landscape were more successful
in coming up with well-founded solutions.
Instructional Supports for Learning
Augmented reality simulations may have communication advantages (i.e., ges
tures, facial expressions) over their purely virtual counterparts. These groups de
bated in real time using their voices, gestures, and physical locations as tools. Al
though similar representations exist in virtual worlds, they require negotiated
standards that must be adopted and accepted over time. Emoticons in chat and
hand signals by avatars are two examples of these emergent standards. Students in
augmented realities do not need to learn these standards, as evidenced by these
cases, because they employ the modes of communication with which they are the
most familiar. More importantly, team members frequently "voted with their feet"
in determining the next location to go. Although this did not always result in demo
cratic decision making (the person holding the computer seemed to have a larger
vote), it did make immediately apparent what people's opinions were and pro
voked critical dialogue.
These affordances show the promise of this technology in structuring learning
activities. We learned from these cases, however, that the students struggled with a
number of fundamental concepts that will require additional scaffolding in subse
quent designs. Students across both cases had difficulty negotiating and making
connections between soft qualitative information gained in interviews and hard
quantitative data gathered through physical samples, suggesting that the game cap
tured a real and relatively hard problem for these students. The differences in ap
propriation can be attributed to several factors, but minimally these cases remind
us of the power of local cultures in shaping how tools are used. The game was only
one object in the activity system, and encompassing cultural models of schooling,
specific academic practices, as well as students' goals, shaped the activity. As the
student who complained about the difficulty would suggest, this activity was more
complex than ones normally demanded from them at school, and one can easily
understand how this activity could be misconstrued in this context as a relatively
simple fact-collecting exercise. This suggests that the design needs additional
learning scaffolds to promote this insight.
Students' difficulties with the investigations suggest that there may be great
learning benefits derived from integrating more extended investigations in envi-
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 405
ronmental engineering curriculum. If learning to redefine the research problem
given new information is a central dilemma in environmental engineering investi
gations, then perhaps allowing students to make these mistakes-to make choices
and experience their consequences within a sandbox-like virtual world-is a good
thing. One way to think about the pedagogical value of competitive games (as
some students seemed to see this activity) in education is to consider their role in
inducing failure states (and subsequent reflection), and in providing a socially ac
ceptable context for trying different strategies, experimenting with ideas, and then
revising those ideas. Play theorists (e.g., SaIen & Zimmerman, 2003) emphasize
the importance of creating safe spaces where people can experiment with new
ideas and new identities. These cases suggest that Environmental Detectives cre
ates a context in which different teams of students can explore ideas and confront
ideas by enacting strategies in game strategies.
One particularly promising pattern we observed was different participants argu
ing for different investigative strategies. In most teams, dominant personalities (as
in the high school case) or a combination of social factors (as in the college stu
dents' cases) drove students to prefer one approach over another and prematurely
close off strategy discussions. In future iterations of Environmental Detectives, we
hope to explore ways of creating game dynamics and groupings so that these ap
proaches are seen in a more even light. Furthermore, we have begun scaffolding
students' problem solving by lengthening the game and providing mid-activity re
views that scaffold students' articulation of what they have learned thus far and
what they still need to find out. The spatially distributed nature of the game makes
in-game coaching difficult, although communication technologies (e.g., walkie
talkies) that allow teachers to better monitor and scaffold students' work could be
integrated into the game.
Summary
Augmented reality simulations hold promise for science educators hoping to help
students understand science as a social practice, as opposed to an isolated set of
facts or procedures. In these enactments of Environmental Detectives, we saw stu
dents negotiating complex problem spaces that demand the integration of multiple
information data sources. Positioning students in virtual investigations made ap
parent their beliefs about science, particularly that conducting an investigation was
a matter of sampling until the "correct" cause of a spill was located or interviewing
experts until the "right" information was gained. As students participated in the ac
tivity, they began to gradually unravel the complexity behind conducting an inves
tigation, with some teams coming to deeper understandings than others. The rela
tively deeply situated experience of conducting a virtual investigation, scaffolded
by the design of the simulation, gave students a narrative to draw from as they stud
ied science. Despite the lack of sophisticated teacher mentoring and facilitation in
406 SQUIRE AND KLOPFER
the enactment we studied, Environmental Detectives helped students understand
the socially situated nature of scientific practice.
IMPLICATIONS
Over the past few years, games and simulations have been criticized for their con
trived nature and contrasted with the social "authenticity" of engaging in commu
nities of practice, either through participation in extended communities of practice
or through establishing classroom-bound communities of practice engaging in au
thentic inquiry (e.g., Barab & Duffy, 2000). Quoting Lave (1993), Barab and Duffy
pitted learning environments predicated upon a practice field metaphor against
those predicated on Lave and Wenger's (1991) communities of practice, arguing
that in practice fields the problems, although authentic in the complexity they
bring to the learner, are not authentic in the sense that they are an integral part of
the ongoing activity of the society. With the practice field, education is viewed as
preparation for some later sets of activities, not as "meaningful activity in its own
right" (pp. 48-49).
Our results suggest that augmented reality games such as Environmental Detec
tives have unique potential for learners to experience intellectually productive
problems central to science in a psychologically safe space where they can try new
ideas (and identities) and learn through failure. Environmental Detectives draws
from traditional practice field models of education but deviates from most of these
forms in that students are placed under time pressures and forced to make deci
sions that have consequences on students' success, and to do so within an environ
mentally meaningful, authentic, but safe environment where failure is acceptable.
What sampling strategies students use, what information students decide to pur
sue, and when students decide to jump from subgoal to subgoal can have critical
societal ramifications. This decision structure is designed not only to be engaging,
but to model authentic scientific and engineering practices, including planning re
search strategies, evaluating the value of data sources, and constructing arguments
in debates with team members.
Perhaps one way to think about the role of strategy games in learning environ
ments is as precursors to conducting full-scale investigations. The teachers we
worked with saw Environmental Detectives as a useful tool for helping students
understand some of the trade-offs in doing larger research projects. Perhaps games
can provide one way for overcoming some of the challenges to more open-ended
forms of inquiry-based learning, such as a lack of student engagement or the expe
rience of cognitive overload by students at the challenges of conducting open
ended inquiry. Games such as Environmental Detectives might provide scaffolding
for conducting larger investigations, serving as simplified but authentic conditions
for larger, more complex tasks. The fact that Environmental Detectives explicitly
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS
407
bridges real and simulated worlds suggests that it may also help to bridge these
practice fields with subsequent actual fields. We believe that by bringing the physi
cal world into the game space, augmented reality gaming applications have unique
educational affordances when compared to their purely virtual counterparts. In
purely digital simulations, students are asked to make connections between wholly
constructed digital virtual environments and the physical landscape. Augmented
reality applications allow the physical environment to enter both the problem
space and students' thinking, and these cases suggest how environmental af
fordances can affect a problem-solving path within an augmented reality environ
ment. In future studies, we will examine how the physical environment enters stu
dents' thinking across a variety of environmental engineering tasks and compare
students' thinking in virtual and augmented reality environments.
The design of Environmental Detectives shares many core features with the
learning-by-design approach (see Kolodner et al., 2003). It seeks to engage learn
ers in cycles of investigations and explorations and reciprocally design and rede
sign (within a collaborative classroom culture with particular ritualized practices).
The approach detailed here scaffolds the player by introducing challenges and em
bedding investigative practices (such as comparing evidence to predictions) within
game play. We believe that situating a game such as this within a more extensive
project-based or learning-by-design-based framework, using these more struc
tured investigations as a source of preparation for more open-ended design tasks,
might help avoid some of the pitfalls of open-ended project-based learning de
scribed by Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark (2006). The key here is not to pit these
various approaches against one another, but to understand how they can be used in
concert within a broader curricular framework.
They may also have some unique affordances when compared to project-based
learning and learning-by-design frameworks that also prepare students for sustained
inquiry (see Barab & Luehmann, 2003; Blumenfeld et al. 1991,2000; Bransford,
Franks, Vye & Sherwood, 1989; CTGV, 1993; Kolodner et al., 2003; Krajcik et al.,
1998; Soloway et al., 1995). Games have the potential to give much more directed
scaffolding to players, in that they can subsume all activity within a particular iden
tity, can introduce newtools to players toenable them to progress into more and more
complex thinking, and can presentjust-in-time multimodal information for feed
back (Gee, 2003). Environmental Detectives makes some use of these features, but
other games played over more sustained time might make further use of them. Com
bining and comparing such pedagogical approaches, and researching how each pre
pares one for sustained inquiry, could be a productive line of future inquiry.
We believe that distinguishing between practice fields and communities of
practice is useful, particularly with respect to what Lave (1988) called the com
moditization of knowledge-the idea that students create contrived products for
schools, as opposed to participating in socially meaningful practices. However, to
disregard practice fields as inauthentic because they use fictional, imaginary
\
..
AUGMENTED REALITY SIMULATION ON HANDHELD COMPUTERS 409
might divide students' task into some simpler starter tasks or episodes so t?ey
could improve their requisite skills and "level up" as they mastered those skills.
Also looking to game design, we may make the narrative itself more interactive, re
sponding to the actions of the players. This would allow the players to have more
control over their outcomes and provide a tighter feedback loop to help steer them
along the right path.
Finally, through these cases we gain insight into the important influence the
location and context on student engagement in this augmented reality. The umver
sity students were engaged in a situation that was taking place on their campus
the place where they lived and worked. The seniors had been on campus for years
and had gotten to know it quite well. The freshmen may have only been on campus
for a few months, but that was still quite a bit longer than the high school students,
who had only previously spent a couple of field trip days at the nature center. The
high school students didn't know their site as well as the college students
theirs and, perhaps more importantly, they may not have cared about the SIte as
much. The consequences, even if they were real, were somewhat removed from
them. One way to solve this problem, of course, is to situate these games in places
that the participants know well and careabout. The challenge is that
against the unique attributes of a location that one might want to incorporate mto a
game. If the students don't deeply care about the through inherent
real-world meaning, one can try to create that connection through the VIrtual part
of the augmented reality. The game can be designed to connect in ways that the stu
dents do care about---deeper information about more well-developed characters,
relevant feedback systems, connections to their own communities, or narratives
that more tightly link to people, places, and events that are inherently meaningful
to them. This requires a partnership between the game developer and game player.
In the case of classes such as these, it means getting students and teachers commu
nicating with developers or, better yet, having students and teachers
developers. That is the direction that this project is headed in: namely. mtegratmg
teachers (and students) into the game design process to better link location and cur
riculum to the augmented reality game play.
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FIGURE 2 Players beginning a round of Environmental Detectives spot their current location
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