The diagram below shows the landscape of embodied learning experiences. One dimension describes the level of embodiment, and the other dimension describes the level of learning that is achieved. We position case studies on this landscape. A review of these cases reveals a trend toward integrating learning activities with embodied experiences in public museum settings.
@ OSU
Planetarium
@ COSI
Ocean
@ COSI
Gadgets
@ TeamLab
Jumping
Universe
@ TeamLab
Musical
Wall
@ COSI
Energy Explorers
@ TeamLab
Dinosaur
Forest
From OSU
The OSU Planetarium features a large projected dome that immerses participants under a simulated sky, allowing them to observe stars, planets, and other celestial objects. This setting provides an excellent space for informal astronomy education. In the public program “The Night Sky” show, the presenter discusses topics such as Earth's coordinate system, different constellations, and the path of the sun. The educational mode is similar to a lecture, where learners sit in their seats, look up at the projected sky, and listen to the lecturer's explanations, enhanced by immersive visual aids.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (3): Immersive visual and sound experience but lacks touch interaction.
2. Body Movement (1): No body movement is required as part of the learning experience.
3. Social Interaction (1): No social interaction or talking is encouraged.
4. Emotional Engagement (2): Participants may feel emotionally moved by the realistic sky view, but the lecture format limits the sense of freedom.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (5): The lecture covers specific learning topics with clear goals.
2. Matching Learning Content (5): The projected sky effectively shows learning content, such as the movement of the sun and moon.
3. Meaningful Interaction (1): Limited interaction; participants can ask questions, but overall interaction is minimal.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (2): Mainly perception-based with some reflection when the presenter asks questions; lacks action.
5. Instruction & Prompt (4): Clear instructions guide participants through several topics.
Takeaways:
● Large projections can create a highly immersive experience.
● In this program, the presenter/educator play a crucial role in delivering lessons and guiding the learning process. However, in informal learning environments like public museums, educators and facilitators are often absent. Designers must consider how to support learners in navigating and self-guiding through the learning experience. While there are usually some facilitators on-site, designers can think about the roles these facilitators take and how to involve them enhance the visitor experience effectively.
From COSI
The Dinosaur Gallery, a partnership between COSI and the American Museum of Natural History, features numerous life-size specimens and a variety of real and cast fossils. The original version, with over 20 years of history, provided physical displays and explanatory boards. Updated in recent years, the exhibit now includes digital and interactive elements like touch screens and sound buttons. Through this experience, visitors learn about dinosaur biology, behavior, extinction, and their evolution into modern-day birds over millions of years.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (2): The life-size specimens are impressive, but visitors are not allowed to touch them, and there are limited sound elements.
2. Body Movement (2): Visitors can walk around, but physical interaction is limited, as touching is not allowed.
3. Social Interaction (2): There is limited social interaction; visitors can talk and take pictures together, but there are no activities encouraging group participation.
4. Emotional Engagement (3): Viewing real specimens and fossils is exciting. There are some interactive elements, but most of them remain conventional and lack engagement.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (4): The explanatory boards clearly present the learning content.
2. Matching Learning Content (3): While the displays convey most of the content, some concepts are not easily illustrated by static physical displays alone.
3. Meaningful Interaction (2): Interaction is minimal; pressing buttons to hear audio is not particularly meaningful.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (2): The exhibit primarily involves perception, with little action or reflection, especially since children may not engage deeply with the explanatory boards.
5. Instruction & Prompt (2): Although there is a lot of information on the boards, there is a lack of prompts encouraging visitors to learn actively.
Takeaways:
● The Dinosaur Gallery shows that life-size specimens and real fossils captivate visitors, providing a tangible connection to the past. Visitors often want to touch these exhibits, which can be addressed by creating durable replicas for tactile exploration.
● While touch screens and sound buttons are steps forward, they remain conventional. Think about design strategies to seamlessly integrate digital technologies with physical displays to encourage interaction and learning.
From COSI
The Gadgets exhibit at COSI features hands-on displays and activities centered around engineering and technology. Visitors can interact with various large-scale physical toys, learning about the principles of mechanics, electricity, and magnetism. This exhibit emphasizes tangible, physical mechanisms over digital elements, offering an engaging, educational experience where visitors have fun exploring and understanding how everyday devices work through direct interaction.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (3): Interaction with the large gadgets provides visual and tactile experiences, though sound is limited.
2. Body Movement (4): The large gadgets require significant physical interaction, encouraging active participation.
3. Social Interaction (3): Many activities can involve multiple participants, promoting social play. However, there is a lack of mechanisms that further encourage joint play.
4. Emotional Engagement (3): Participants have fun physically interacting with the toys, creating a playful and engaging environment. However, some toys are basic and lack of surprise.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (3): The primary focus is on play, with learning goals not always clearly stated.
2. Matching Learning Content (3): The physical mechanisms of the toys align with educational content but may not fully convey underlying principles.
3. Meaningful Interaction (3): Actions on the toys cause observable effects, helping participants figure out the underlying knowledge. However, some actions are not directly related to the educational content.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (3): The exhibit involves perception and action but lacks elements that encourage reflection.
5. Instruction & Prompt (3): Instructions are provided to do the activities, but more prompts could be provided to enhance understanding of the learning concepts.
Takeaways:
● The Gadgets exhibit demonstrates the potential of physical toy design to encourage hands-on learning. The tangible interaction helps visitors understand mechanical and electrical principles through direct manipulation.
● There is a significant opportunity to design these large gadgets for collaborative play. Integrating gamification elements could enhance social interaction.
● Incorporating digital elements, such as sound effects or augmented reality overlays, could make the exhibit more dynamic and engaging.
From COSI
The Oceans exhibit at COSI offers an immersive underground fantasy world of water, featuring a large Poseidon statue and enhanced by light, sound, and environment design. Visitors, especially kids, can engage with water-related hands-on activities to learn about ocean waves, whirlpools, water flow, hydraulics, and sand erosion, uncovering the scientific principles of the underwater world through exploration and play.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (5): Immersive environment enhanced by ambisonics sound and lights; the Poseidon statue transports visitors to another world.
2. Body Movement (5): Visitors actively engage with various water activities, promoting significant physical interaction.
3. Social Interaction (3): Visitors can play together, though the activities do not deliberately encourage collaborative play.
4. Emotional Engagement (4): Visitors feel highly engaged and immersed in the environment, making it a unique and special journey.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (4): All activities have a defined learning topic.
2. Matching Learning Content (4): Visitors can experience scientific phenomena through hands-on activities, aligning with educational content.
3. Meaningful Interaction (4): The hands-on activities allow visitors to experience and understand scientific phenomena.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (3): Good perception and action are involved, but there is still a lack of reflection, as activities focus primarily on play.
5. Instruction & Prompt (4): Clear instructions are provided in an easily readable format, though additional prompts could help visitors reflect and internalize the knowledge better.
Takeaways:
● The immersive nature of the exhibit, enhanced by sound and light, encourages engagement and active learning. Such environments can significantly enhance the educational experience by making learning more engaging and memorable.
● While the Poseidon statue effectively transports visitors to another world, the overall design of the exhibition could benefit from incorporating more mysterious elements to create a more cohesive and enchanting experience.
● Though the exhibition features immersive sound and light design, the interactive materials are all physical. There is a significant opportunity to incorporate interactive digital elements to provide more information about the learning subjects and encourage various ways of meaningful interactions.
From COSI
The Energy Explorers exhibit at COSI features interactive experiences that make energy conservation both relevant and enjoyable for families, with an emphasis on real science and data. Utilizing gamification, narrative, and personal choices, the exhibit engages visitors by having them start with a character card to explore various stations. Through this hands-on experience, participants learn about different energy sources like solar, wind, and fossil fuels, and gain an understanding of energy efficiency and sustainability.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (5): The exhibit involves various stations and scenarios for participants to understand power systems. It offers visuals and sounds, and participants can touch and interact with the environments without limitations.
2. Body Movement (4): Many stations incorporate body movement in the gamified experience. For example, participants ride a bike to generate electricity.
3. Social Interaction (5): Several stations feature collaborative or competitive games, promoting social interaction.
4. Emotional Engagement (4): The gamified experience, character selection, and interactive game choices provide fun and engagement. However, the variety might initially overwhelm some visitors.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (5): Each station has a clear learning subject.
2. Matching Learning Content (5): The exhibit design and activities effectively convey the learning content.
3. Meaningful Interaction (5): The interactions are meaningful, helping visitors understand the topics.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (4): Visitors actively perceive and interact with the designed environment, though it still lacks a reflection process to ensure comprehension.
5. Instruction & Prompt (4): Instructions are provided for the activities; additional prompts could help visitors reflect on the activities and learn the underlying knowledge.
Takeaways:
● This exhibit is very popular due to the gamified learning experience. The gamification approach significantly enhances active learning, making the educational content more engaging and enjoyable.
● Some stations are specifically designed for social learning, where gamification encourages social interactions and collaborative learning. This approach engages learners in meaningful group activities, leveraging the potential of social interaction and intergenerational communication to enhance the informal learning experience.
● While the variety of activities is engaging, some visitors may feel intimidated or overwhelmed initially. Ensuring the design is more accessible and providing clear onboarding instructions can help mitigate this issue.
From teamLab
Multi Jumping Universe features a large trampoline and projections of a virtual universe with stars and planets on the trampoline floor and surrounding walls. Participants can jump on the trampoline, creating warps in space-time that lead to the formation and growth of stars. Through this interactive experience, they learn about the life cycle of stars, from their birth and growth to their eventual transformation into stardust or black holes, illustrating the dynamic processes of the universe.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (3): Nice projected visuals and sound effects but lacks tactile interaction.
2. Body Movement (5): The use of the trampoline encourages intense body movement, evoking a sense of play and physical engagement.
3. Social Interaction (3): Multiple participants can join in, but there is limited interaction among them.
4. Emotional Engagement (5): Children have fun jumping and observing the changes in the universe, creating a highly engaging experience.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (2): The learning goals are not immediately clear to participants; adding verbal or visual prompts could improve clarity.
2. Matching Learning Content (2): The content is visually spectacular but may not convey scientific accuracy clearly.
3. Meaningful Interaction (2): The jumping action does not directly correlate with the scientific processes displayed, limiting the meaningfulness of the interaction.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (2): The experience includes perception and action but lacks elements that encourage reflection.
5. Instruction & Prompt (2): The activity is straightforward, but additional prompts could guide participants to understand the underlying science better.
Takeaways:
● The creative use of a trampoline floor effectively engages participants through intense physical activity.
● Incorporating prompts and instructions could help bridge the gap between fun and educational value, ensuring participants understand the concepts being illustrated.
From teamLab
Dinosaur Forest is an interactive learning space where visitors use their smartphones to explore a prehistoric environment filled with extinct animals, including dinosaurs. The exhibit features animals that react to touch by turning to face visitors or running away. Participants use their smartphones to track and capture these animals with Study Arrows and Study Nets, adding them to a digital collection book. Through this immersive experience, visitors engage physically with the environment, discovering and studying prehistoric wildlife. The more they capture and study the same animal, the more detailed their knowledge becomes, promoting an engaging and educational adventure.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (4): The exhibit provides an immersive projected dinosaur world with sound effects like dinosaur roars, but all materials are digital, lacking tactile experience.
2. Body Movement (3): Participants walk around and use their phones to interact with digital dinosaurs, although the body movement is somewhat limited.
3. Social Interaction (3): Visitors primarily explore individually. They can observe others' behaviors and interactions with the environment, but social interaction is not actively encouraged.
4. Emotional Engagement (5): The immersive and interactive nature of the exhibit enables high emotional engagement.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (4): The learning goal is to learn about pre-historical species. Visitors catch these species and collect information to learn.
2. Matching Learning Content (4): The environment itself serves as the learning content, where visitors learn about the living conditions of the species and the ecosystem of that time. However, it’s questionable if it’s scientifically accurate, as it may be beautified, and the behaviors of the species are limited. Visitors can collect information on their smartphones and review it later, which is beneficial.
3. Meaningful Interaction (3): Participants are encouraged to interact with virtual species in the environment, such as touching and collecting the animals with their phones. However, these interactions are not directly related to the learning concepts and serve more as a means of discovery and exploration. While this is beneficial, designing congruent behaviors aligned with the learning concepts would enhance the educational experience, for instance, using the body to measure a dinosaur to develop a better understanding of its size.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (4): Good perception and action are involved. Visitors can view the information of animals collected on their phones at any time, providing some reflection. However, there is still a lack of learning tasks to help visitors reflect on and embody what they have learned.
5. Instruction & Prompt (5): The application on the smartphone provides good instructions to guide participants in exploring the dinosaur forest.
Takeaways:
● The use of smartphones in the Dinosaur Forest exhibit enhances visitor interaction with the digital environment and serves as a tool for collecting and storing information about prehistoric species. This dual functionality allows for a more personalized and interactive experience, as visitors can track their discoveries and review detailed information later, deepening their understanding.
● The exploration mode of play aligns well with informal learning, making the experience engaging and educational by promoting active discovery.
● The exhibit is fully supported by digital media. Physical materials can be added. Incorporating elements that visitors can touch and manipulate would provide a more comprehensive sensory experience, making the interaction more engaging and memorable.
From teamLab
A Musical Wall where Little People Live is an interactive exhibit featuring a world where tiny inhabitants interact with various objects. Visitors attach stamps of different shapes, like mushrooms and sheep barns, to the wall, causing these objects to appear in the little people's world. The tiny inhabitants then climb, slide, and jump on the stamps, creating dynamic interactions. Additionally, smiley-faced seeds fall from above, producing musical notes when they hit the stamps, resulting in a unique melody. Through this exhibit, visitors engage in a playful and creative experience, learning about basic principles of mechanics, such as inertia, motion, and action-reaction, while observing how external forces influence movement and sound.
Embodiment (1-5):
1. Multisensory Experience (5): The exhibit engages visual, auditory, and tactile senses, providing a rich multisensory experience.
2. Body Movement (5): Participants can manipulate physical stamps and use their body movements to alter the environment and the behaviors of the little people.
3. Social Interaction (4): While people can play together, the exhibit does not specifically encourage collaborative interaction.
4. Emotional Engagement (5): The immersive, interactive, and fun nature of the exhibit, combined with its cute and engaging design, results in high emotional engagement.
Potential Learning Outcome (1-5):
1. Clear Learning Goal (3): Participants may not have a clear understanding of the learning goals from this experience.
2. Matching Learning Content (4): The exhibit is built on basic principles of mechanics, aligning well with educational content.
3. Meaningful Interaction (4): Actions in the exhibit cause observable effects, making the interactions meaningful.
4. Perception-Action-Reflection (4): The exhibit involves perception and action, but lacks elements that encourage reflection.
5. Instruction & Prompt (3): While the activity is intuitive, additional prompts could guide participants to understand the underlying concepts better.
Takeaways:
● The exhibit showcases a successful combination of digital and physical materials.
● Enhancing the learning experience by incorporating goal-oriented game elements could be beneficial. For example, modifying the stamps and using body movements to guide the little people from point A to point B could make the experience more structured and educational, balancing exploration with targeted learning objectives.
