The WildLab in Education

 

The MacArthur Foundation selected the WildLab as a winner of the 2009 Digital Media and Learning Competition, in the Innovation in Participatory Learning category. By applying the latest mobile phone technology to K-12 participatory science, the WildLab engages students in collaborative citizen science and encourages local environmental stewardship.

Using GPS-enabled, Internet-connected iPhones as data collection devices, the WildLab allows students to report their scientific observations to each other and to the larger scientific community. In the classroom, students can send their data to sponsoring institutions for analysis, posit their own questions, and develop their own line of inquiry based on their field experiences.

The Digital Media and Learning Competition, funded by a MacArthur grant to the University of California (Irvine) and to Duke University, is administered by the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), a virtual network of learning institutions. The Competition is part of MacArthur’s $50 million digital media and learning initiative designed to help determine how digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize and participate in civic life.

We will be posting progress and news related to the grant here. Stay tuned!