Sixth-graders in Lauren Guarracino and David Kacinski’s Investigations classes created their own virtual-reality grocery store aisle/farmers market using CoSpaces – incorporating key takeaways from their nutrition unit combined with coding exploration!
“We really wanted students to display their knowledge of the unit material through their creative use of technology,” explained Guarracino.
CoSpaces is a platform which enables students to bring their own 3D creations to life with block-based code – and then explore them in virtual or augmented reality. “The students were truly engaged and enjoyed having the opportunity to explore all of the features of coding,” Kacinski added. “They experimented with the creativity aspect of their projects – adding moveable and clickable objects to create a dynamic space.”
Students learned how interactivity boosts user engagement before choosing items to include in their grocery aisle/farmers market. This required researching the nutrition facts for each item they wanted to include and creating recipes with items found in their aisle. Students then added characters to their VR projects and programmed them to recite nutrition facts, welcome users and check out other “customers” within their space.
“I really liked using CoSpaces and coding to create something unique,” said sixth-grader Dermot M. “It helped me understand nutrition and what’s in the foods I eat every day.”
