Great Impact Marks Return of Immersive Education Experience

March 21, 2021 – Sarasota

Wilkinson Elementary School students and teachers returned from spring break on Monday, March 22, to discover a meteor had landed on campus and created a crater.  

The Education Foundation of Sarasota County funded the “Great Impact” simulated meteor landing, a weeklong school-wide immersive grant designed to bring earth space science and geology to life for Wilkinson students in kindergarten through fifth grade. 

Although popular and effective with students and teachers, the science-based inquiry simulation was the first in more than a year due to pandemic-related limitations on campus activities. 

The “Great Impact” simulation was made possible by a collaboration between a Wilkinson team, led by principal Susan Nations; Suzanne Burke, the Education Foundation’s director for life readiness; and Immersive Academics’ principals Mitch Ruzek and Dana Zeidler, both University of South Florida science professors.

Together, the partners creatively and strategically adapted the scenario to keep the project’s deep immersive, engaging aspects while following public health social distancing guidelines. 

Immersive events are constructed in a manner whereby students are able to “discover” the event much in the way actual scientific discoveries transpire in real time. They observe, ask questions, and make plans as to the best way to examine and study the “discovery” in subsequent days.

“It was great to see our students so engaged and enthusiastic. It’s important that, as educators, we keep finding new and different ways to provide our students with hands-on learning experiences. Our Wilkinson community is committed to our focus on STEAM integration, and we are thankful to the Education Foundation for funding this project that helps us keep moving forward despite the pandemic,” Nations said. 

At the Wilkinson immersion scenario, Ruzek and Zeidler posed as NASA scientists by quarantining the meteor with caution tape and processing the site, collecting scientific data and utilizing sterilizing techniques and outward observation procedures. The scientists also worked with the Wilkinson “News Crew” to stoke excitement in daily morning announcements.

Preparation for the March 22 “day of discovery” began two months earlier with Ruzek and Zeidler leading Wilkinson teams in professional development workshops. Faculty and administrators were provided with cross-curricular sample lessons and resources designed to assist them in guiding students’ curiosity toward quantifiable inquiries, plausible hypotheses, observations, and inferences to help develop accurate scientific habits of mind.