short-paper

How Science Fiction Worldbuilding Supports Students' Scientific Explanation

Authors:

Camillia Matuk,

Talia Hurwich,

Anna AmatoAuthors Info & Claims

FL2019: Proceedings of FabLearn 2019

Pages 193 - 196

https://doi.org/10.1145/3311890.3311925

Published: 09 March 2019 Publication History

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Abstract

Creating science fiction can engage both imagination and scientific reasoning. We offer examples of middle school students building science fiction explanations to justify their decisions during a week-long role-playing game (RPG) design workshop. Findings show how worldbuilding---that is, defining the game's setting, history, and characters---supported students in formulating relevant science questions, integrating various science ideas into complex mechanistic explanations, and articulating and critiquing ideas. They also show the challenges students faced in balancing fiction and science to create credible game worlds; and how differences in participation affected collaborators' ultimate abilities to explain. We conclude that RPG design has many affordances as a science learning environment, but also particular caveats for formal educators to bear in mind.

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Cited By

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Ran HShen JSmith BWang C(2023)Creating Digital Sci-Fi Narratives through Multimodal Composing to Promote Adolescent Students’ STEM EducationDisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research10.1186/s43031-023-00072-75:1Online publication date: 12-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-023-00072-7
Krings KBohn NHille NLudwig T(2023)“What if everyone is able to program?” – Exploring the Role of Software Development in Science FictionProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581436(1-13)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581436
Kinnula MDurall EHaukipuro L(2022)Imagining Better Futures for Everybody – Sustainable Entrepreneurship Education for Future Design Protagonists6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 202210.1145/3535227.3535229(1-8)Online publication date: 30-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535227.3535229
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Index Terms

How Science Fiction Worldbuilding Supports Students' Scientific Explanation
1. General and reference
  1. Cross-computing tools and techniques
    1. Design
    2. Empirical studies
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. K-12 education

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Published In

FL2019: Proceedings of FabLearn 2019

March 2019

206 pages

ISBN:9781450362443

DOI:10.1145/3311890

Conference Chairs:
Paulo Blikstein
Teachers College, Columbia University
,
Nathan Holbert
Teachers College, Columbia University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 09 March 2019

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Short-paper
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FL2019

FL2019: FabLearn 2019

March 9 - 10, 2019

NY, New York, USA

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FL2019 Paper Acceptance Rate 36 of 73 submissions, 49%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 36 of 73 submissions, 49%

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Cited By

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Ran HShen JSmith BWang C(2023)Creating Digital Sci-Fi Narratives through Multimodal Composing to Promote Adolescent Students’ STEM EducationDisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research10.1186/s43031-023-00072-75:1Online publication date: 12-May-2023
https://doi.org/10.1186/s43031-023-00072-7
Krings KBohn NHille NLudwig T(2023)“What if everyone is able to program?” – Exploring the Role of Software Development in Science FictionProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581436(1-13)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581436
Kinnula MDurall EHaukipuro L(2022)Imagining Better Futures for Everybody – Sustainable Entrepreneurship Education for Future Design Protagonists6th FabLearn Europe / MakeEd Conference 202210.1145/3535227.3535229(1-8)Online publication date: 30-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535227.3535229
Jordan PSilva P(2021)Science Fiction—An Untapped Opportunity in HCI Research and EducationDesign, User Experience, and Usability: UX Research and Design10.1007/978-3-030-78221-4_3(34-47)Online publication date: 3-Jul-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78221-4_3
Amato AMatuk CHurwich T(2020)Modding for ChangeProceedings of the FabLearn 2020 - 9th Annual Conference on Maker Education10.1145/3386201.3386230(126-129)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386201.3386230
Angeli LLuca MGrossi CFiore FCapaccioli AGuarise AStoycheva MMarchese M(2020)Prove Me Wrong! How Debating Becomes the Secret Weapon to Teach ICT Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE)10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368481(173-180)Online publication date: 8-Dec-2020
https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48869.2020.9368481

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