Let's Explore Space: Wonderscope 

Madison McCann and Jillian Keng

Wonderscope is an AR application that allows students to become fully immersed into a fictional story that incorporates learning areas such as math, science, social/emotional skills, and much more. This lesson focuses on one story titled "Clio's Cosmic Quest" and allows students to practice and review their understanding of the solar system and encourages students to actively participate in speaking/listening/reading ESL activities.    

Contextualization

• Grade: 3rd graders (8/9 year olds) 

• Language Level: (B1/B2)

Lesson Aims

• Objectives:  Students will be able to: 

- Practice and review vocabulary related to the solar system

- Expand knowledge of solar system

- Follow spoken instructions to complete and follow along to a narrative 

- Read sentences that follow simple subject verb agreement (ex: I can help you, We need to stop him) 

• CEFR Competence: Written Reception (B2)  

Can read with a large degree of independence, adapting style and speed of reading to different texts and purposes, and using appropriate reference sources selectively. Has a broad active reading vocabulary, but may experience some difficulty with low-frequency idioms.

• CEFR Competence: Audio-visual Reception (B1)

Can follow many films in which visuals and action carry much of the storyline, and which are delivered clearly in straightforward language. Can catch the main points in TV programmes on familiar topics when the delivery is relatively slow and clear

Preparation for the app task cycle 

• Instructor needs to download IOS application 'Wonderscope' 

• Instructor needs to decide if they would like to finish the story in one session or separate the chapters into different lessons 

Materials 

• Wonderscope App 

• iPad or iPhone

• Poster supplies or computer to create a presentation for the post task 

• Discussion Questions

Pre-Task

• Introduce vocabulary regarding science and key words in the story (ex: nebula, supernova, carbon dioxide, greenhouse effect)

• Students will have learned about the solar system to understand the key concepts discussed in the narrative

• The instructor will provide visual and verbal instructions to assist students in using the application. The whole class will listen and do the first chapter together to introduce the story and after the students will be divided into groups. 

Main Task

• Students will listen to the stories to discover the solar system. An open space is needed to ensure movement. Each student will have their own iPad to follow along with the story. They will get to see and hear stories in real time and read out words to interact with the story. In order for the story to continue, students MUST interact and read the sentence that appears on the screen. If students do not read the sentence, the story will not continue, so they are required to be engaged in the story. 

Post Task

• At the end of the story, a scene appears that includes all the different planets in the solar system. After finishing the story, students will be assigned groups and a planet will be assigned for a project. The students will share with the class what they learned about their respective planet from the last page of the story and can do outside research if needed.