University of Wisconsin

The University of Wisconsin and its partners from MIT and Harvard University are creating a series of augmented reality simulations that promote interdisciplinary learning by middle school students. In one of these games, “Alien Contact!,” aliens have landed on Earth, and students must work in teams to determine why the aliens have landed. Each student will adopt a different role -- Chemist, Linguist, Computer Expert, or FBI Agent. Equipped with a handheld PC and Global Positioning device, students will interview virtual characters, collect digital evidence, solve puzzles, and share information with each other. The team will work to develop hypotheses about what has happened and then orally present their findings to the rest of the class. Alien Contact is based on Massachusetts state standards and focuses on math and literacy concepts typically found difficult for students to master – including ratio and proportion, indirect measurement, and many other topics.

Targeted Teachers: “Alien Contact!” targets 7th grade math teachers, especially focuses on early geometry, including proofs and hypothesis testing