WaterWays Development Continues with Phase II funding from the National Institutes of Health

Killer Snails and partners the Hudson River Park, Wildlife Conservation Society, and The Mount Sinai Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures, were awarded a Phase II grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue developing WaterWays, an augmented reality (AR) experience aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards. Elementary school students will work in augmented reality (via iPads, Chromebooks, or other tablets) and personalized online science journals to gather data, answer questions, construct models and develop and test hypotheses.

In WaterWays, students will learn more about human impacts on water, and water's impact on humans. While developing knowledge of the connections between ecology and human health, students will also apply that understanding to come up with solutions addressing problems like water pollution. 

Although the 2020-2021 school year was highly unusual for schools, Killer Snails remotely piloted WaterWays in 8 individual student user research sessions. Since WaterWays was designed for students in grades 3-5, individual students were recruited who represented each of these grade levels. We also adapted our classroom research at 3 schools where 170 students (in a mix of in-person, remote and hybrid classes), 10 classroom teachers, and 6 informal educators participated.

We're looking forward to continuing building this new technology with our educational partners!