When two University of Saskatchewan graduate students pitched the idea of a metaverse for their final project, they never expected to win a competition and present it to the United Nations.
Kristin Moskalyk and Nicole Lamoureux had to find a way to teach about one of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for their Sustainability Teaching and Learning Through Design & Technology course. The duo chose SDG 14: Life Below Water, a goal to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources.
Although they had no previous experience designing virtual worlds, the two former teachers wanted to find a way to develop empathy and support for SDG 14 among people in landlocked provinces.
“It was just the idea that our students would come from the prairies, landlocked, and a lot of our students would never be in the ocean, so they might not understand what’s really going on there,” Moskalyk said Thursday during an interview. “I think it’s really important that teachers and people in education development roles are innovative with their approaches and try to create exciting opportunities for students.”
Users walking through the virtual world encounter learning materials including tasks, games and videos.
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Moskalyk said the platform they used, Frame VR, was easy to use, allowing them to focus on the content within the metaverse.
“It was just a learning curve to get these resources and organize them so that they were easy for students to use.”
When Moskalyk and Lamoureux completed their project, their professor encouraged them to apply for the Metaverse for Sustainable Development Goals Global Prize and Virtual Reality Competition.
“When I saw the competition, I thought it would be an excellent application,” said Paula MacDowell, assistant professor of curriculum studies. “It’s a very high level – an enviable level – of student engagement… Frankly, the STGs are terrifying. I mean, it’s all the issues and problems that are happening in our world.”
Their team, which they called Techy Teachers, was one of 15 winning teams, selected from 257 teams from 70 countries. They earned a level two finalist prize of $10,000.
“It’s actually a very big success. We didn’t think our project would go this far,” says Nicole Lamoureux. “I think it was just a testament to how hard we worked and how we went into it with passion, so we’re pretty proud of how far we’ve come.”
Kristin Moskalyk and Nicole Lamoureu’s metaverse.
Ethan Butterfield / Global News
The team presented their metaverse at the UN’s Science Technology and Innovation Forum last year. They met delegates in their virtual world and gave them a tour.
“It was well received,” Moskalyk said. “People were excited about the possibility of students getting involved with this type of education.”
She hopes teachers will take advantage of it source in their classrooms and wants to gain access to more VR headsets to distribute to schools.
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