POSTER
Ellen Min, Zhiting He, Jina Kang
This study presents a design approach that integrates design thinking and human-centered design to support collaborative science learning in extended reality (XR). The approach was implemented in an XR astronomy summer camp in Illinois, where high school students (working in small groups of 3–4) engaged in a one-hour co-design activity using a single Meta Quest 3 headset. The headset view was cast to a shared laptop display, enabling group members to collaboratively engage with XR content alongside physical and digital materials.
Students participated in a structured design challenge, “Surviving Perihelion – Designing XR to Explore Planetary Motion,” grounded in a narrative scenario of a spacecraft approaching the Sun. Following a brief tutorial on XR interaction and 3D manipulation, teams moved through phases of design thinking. In the Discover phase, students examined learner personas to identify specific needs. In Define, they articulated design goals related to key concepts such as orbital speed, perihelion, and distance–temperature relationships. During Develop, groups used Figmin XR to collaboratively prototype interactive 3D representations, incorporating spatial features such as orbital paths, motion cues, and visual indicators.
This work highlights how a structured co-design approach can guide learners in using XR tools to externalize ideas, coordinate design decisions, and engage with complex spatial-scientific concepts, offering implications for designing participatory and collaborative immersive learning environments.