SCIENCE VR CASE STUDY: Animals & Their Adaptations (Student Age 6-7)
“This lesson works really well as part of a sequence where students have already begun to think about animals they’re familiar with from their own environment, in small habitats nearby (e.g. a school pond or garden, or even a large tree).”
“It’s also helpful for students to have a basic understanding of simple food chains and the idea of predators and prey.”
Hannah Davies
Educational Specialist
PRACTICAL SESSION
For this session, you’ll need printed ARCubes; these are available to download from the ClassVR Portal. Make a playlist of the animals you’d like to send, or use the Animals 3D pre-made playlist. Decide which animal you’d like students to focus on first, then use the play button to send it to all the headsets simultaneously. This can work really well if students are in mixed-ability pairs, with one student using the headset and the other asking questions or recording ideas. It can also be really useful to have a scaffolded worksheet or prompts for students at this point, to focus their thinking. Students can hold the animal in their hand using the cube (don’t forget, to make the model appear larger, swipe up on the panel at the right of the headset). Try prompting students to discuss these questions: What kind of habitat does this animal live in? How does this animal move around? What does it eat for food? Is it prey for any other animals?
IMPACT ON LEARNING
The ability to closely examine creatures of all kinds from all angles – without any risk of harming them (or of being harmed, in the case of the lion!) – gives students a fantastic opportunity. They can spend as long as they need looking carefully at the features of each animal, dipping in and out of using the headset as they find out more about its habitat. A fantastic activity to follow up on this session could be for students to design their own imaginary creature that has adaptations suited to a given environment. You’ll be amazed what they’ll come up with!