Augmented by Reality: The Pedagogical Praxis of Urban Planning as a Pathway to Ecological Thinking

In this article, we present a study focused on developing students' understanding the ecology through participation in a technology-supported urban planning simulation—specifically, 11 high school students in Madison, Wisconsin acted as urban planners to redesign a local shopping street using a Geographic Information System (GIS) model. This experimental design was situated within the theory of pedagogical praxis, which suggests that modeling learning environments on authentic professional practices enables youth to develop a deeper understanding of important domains of inquiry (Shaffer, 2004). Results presented here suggest that through participation in the project students: a) developed an understanding of ecology; and b) developed this understanding through the urban planning practices and the features of the GIS model used during the project. Thus, we propose that this augmented by reality learning environment modeled on the professional practices of urban planners extends the theory of pedagogical praxis into the domain of ecology and offers a useful method for developing ecological understanding through participation in simulations that incorporate the authentic tools and practices of urban planning.