Augmented Reality in Education

In researching augmented reality apps for education, I came across many that would be beneficial to my classroom. My favorite this far as been CivilisationsAR by BBC as covered in my post on AR and VR exploration. Just to recap, it shows all kinds of historical artifacts by location on the earth and provides information through video and audio.

Since I blogged about it in a previous post, I decided to talk about another APP: SolAR. SolAR is an app that displays the individual planets in our solar system or the solar system as a whole. It is advertised at ages four and up. 


With this app, you are able to see a planet spinning right in front of you. By moving your fingers around on the planet, you are able to change the size and orientation on your phone. Using the pinch gesture with two fingers, you can change the size of the system. You can change the orientation and axis of the system by doing the pan gesture with one finger. You can change the distance from the system relative to your own position by doing the pan gesture with two fingers. Lastly, you can change the height of the system relative to your own position using the three finger pan gesture. With each planet, the app also has a set of information so users can learn more about that planet. The only downside to this app is cost. Although I was able to access a few planets, you need to pay $2.99 to see the whole solar system. Here is a video below of someone using SolAR.

I have some ideas about how I can use solAR in my classroom. In Geography, I cover standards on the solar system as the solar system creates our physical geography (climate, tides, erosion, etc.). I would use this app in a scavenger hunt. I would ask students to find different aspects out about planets using the app (i.e. Which planet has the most moons? Which planet is x miles from the sun? Which planet is the hottest? etc.). This information would be much more memorable when they attain in while literally viewing a 3D solar system. In addition, they should definitely learn to navigate augmented reality apps as I believe that this trend will continue in education (not that we really have to teach many of them as they already use it).