ERHS students learning topography by playing in the sand

Playing in the sandbox is something most students grow out of long before high school, but students at Emerald Ridge High School are reverting back to childhood.

Emerald Ridge teacher Jackie Ferry was on Facebook one night and saw a video posted by staff at UC Davis on an augmented reality sandbox. When she saw it, she just knew she had to incorporate it into her CTE science classes. She got fellow CTE teacher Jason Westerbur on board with the project as well.

“Jason and I researched the software,” Ferry said. “He did most of the construction.”

To make the augmented reality sandbox, Westerbur used a computer with a high-end graphics card and connects through an XBox 360, which displays a topographical map on the sand and responds when rivers, streams, lakes or mountains are constructed.

“As you move the sand, the topography changes,” Westerbur said. “It’s a way to test the natural environment and see what can happen in our natural resources. You can test for tsunamis by creating momentum and seeing where the water will flow.”

Student Jacob Waddington, a sophomore, saw a similar project on Kickstarter long before the augmented reality sandbox was built at ER.

“I saw one on Kickstarter and I thought it was really awesome,” he said. “It cost $10,000 to do, but our teachers did it for under $3,000, which is really cool.”

Westerbur says the project took around 20 hours to build with the help of his computer science students.

“When they got the sandbox to work, we were teaching a gaming class to elementary students and they were totally engulfed by it,” he said.

Since the project was completed, Ferry has been using the sandbox to primarily teach topography to her science students.

“The students really like the instantaneous of it, and how quickly you can create a river and a mountain,” she said.

Ferry’s students used to make their topographical maps using salt dough, which would take too much classroom time, where now students can build 3-D topographical maps in 10 minutes.

“It’s a great way to learn and integrate tech in the classroom,” she said.

This story was originally published November 25, 2015 at 9:02 AM with the headline "ERHS students learning topography by playing in the sand."