Enhancing Early Elementary Civics Education Through Augmented Reality Games
While civics education is the cornerstone of the social studies curriculum, the concepts addressed in civics education are highly abstract One tactic for bridging the concrete realities of elementary learners’ lives and the abstract concepts of civics is augmented reality When augmented reality is used to build a civics education game, students are engaged in decision-making, the core action of social studies and citizenship The authors have investigated the potential for game-based learning with AR for early elementary learners’ civics education, collaborating with 2nd and 3rd grade teachers at a progressive, private school to develop, implement, and refine two curriculum-aligned games for civic education Both games will be demonstrated, and their materials are freely available on the web We invite elementary social studies teachers and teacher educators to consider adapting these games to their own school campuses and surrounding neighborhoods We encourage them to collaborate in continuing to explore the possibilities of game-based learning and augmented reality for crafting powerful civic education experiences for early elementary learners
Presider: Renesha Hendrix