Sick at South Shore Beach: a place-based augmented reality game as a framework for building evidence-based arguments

Recent research on Augmented Reality (AR) gaming suggests that place-based AR games embedded in larger curricular units provide contexts and scaffolding for developing students' scientific argumentation skills. This project explores the potential of one specific place-based AR gaming unit, Sick at South Shore Beach, to develop students’ argumentation skills and increase their understanding of the role that social interactions play in the development of scientific arguments. Introduction / Statement of Problem The National Science Educational Standards (National Research Council, 1996) identifies the following scientific literacy goals for fifth through eighth graders: (1) Use appropriate tools and techniques to gather, analyze, and interpret data. (2) Develop descriptions, explanations, predictions, and models using evidence. (3) Think critically and logically to make relationships between evidence and explanations. Despite these goals and recent initiatives to support them, students still struggle to construct, justify, and evaluate scientific arguments (Kuhn, 2005; Weinberger, et al., 2006). Many researchers trace this problem to the nature of traditional school-based science, which tends to center around well-defined problems that train students to look for one right answer (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002; Lemke, 1990). This approach does not address sociocultural contexts that shape argumentation and meaning making in science and does little to help students understand the nature of scientific inquiry outside the classroom. It may also lead students to view science as the accumulation of facts instead of a negotiation of knowledge within scientific communities (Chinn & Malhotra, 2002).