This resource is designed for use in freshman introductory geoscience courses (intro to physical geology), but can also be used in a wide array of formal and informal educational settings. It is a game-like learning experience with predefined learning outcomes where students explore immersive virtual environments and use what they learned to tackle three culminating knowledge challenges.

Students should be familiar with geologic time (or deep time), extinction, evolutionary trees, natural selection, and adaptation.

This is a stand-alone activity to be used after students have been introduced to the basic concepts of evolution, extinction, adaptation, ecosystems, food webs and the geologic time scale.

Activity Length

The complete the entire game by mapping out all 12 evolutionary lineages, exploring all 10 real world field sites and completing the three main challenges, requires roughly three-four hours.

Surviving Extinction is a browser-based, immersive learning experience that takes students on a journey through time as they choose to take on the role of different animals and visually explore the environmental and biological changes that occurred from 350 million years ago to the present. Students step through fifteen different prehistoric time periods and discover ten modern-day expedition sites in an interactive 360° adaptive learning experience.Students must decide which group of animals to follow as their traits change in relation to environmental pressures, ecological changes, new species interactions, and key mass extinctions. The interactive experience allows students to explore how certain evolutionary traits may have been beneficial for species survival. Throughout their journey, they hear from real scientists, solve challenges, and attempt to build a path to the modern day while avoiding deadly predators and, most of all, surviving extinction.

Learning Outcome #1: Explain the benefits of specific adaptive traits for species survival.
Learning Outcome #2: Recognize and categorize key mammalian and reptilian adaptive traits.
Learning Outcome #3: Recall, describe, and order key events (such as dominant animals and mass extinctions) in history from 350 Ma to present.

Learners construct an evolutionary tree through time starting from an early tetrapod ancestor through to 12 different modern animals. Using game-based learning, users explore reconstructed environments, mass extinctions, real-world fossil sites and adaptive traits of mammals and reptiles.

Making observations, identify patterns, providing evidence to support reasoning.

This activity is accessible at https://vft.asu.edu/ through the Center for Education Through eXploration (https://etx.asu.edu/) at Arizona State University. They build adaptive digital learning experiences for K-12 education that engage learners in virtual environments and bring Earth and space science to life.

Technology Needs

Real-time Internet access is required to view this VFT. We recommend the use of the browsers Google Chrome or Firefox for the best results. It is not optimized for viewing on mobile devices.

In this gamified VFT, learners will receive a score based on the points they earn as they play through the game. In addition to 10 "Trend" questions, "VS" battles and 10 secret "Real-world Expedition Sites", there are three "Key Challenges" hidden within the game to test learner knowledge.