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Learning Geography Through Mobile Gaming

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Handbook of the Changing World Language Map

Abstract

Moving forward through the twenty-first century, increasingly sophisticated mapping and gaming methods will likely become available. The melding of these two topics is embodied in the augmented reality mobile app game Ingress, developed by Niantic Labs. Ingress can be described as a union of geocaching, a popular recreational activity utilizing GPS, and capture the flag, a game that involves two factions attempting to secure the opposing flag. Ingress has been added to sections of introductory physical geography courses at Kutztown University. By providing a unique learning language platform, mobile gaming can allow students to cultivate and nurture geographical inquiries by discovering locations with cultural, artistic, or random significance in their local communities.

It is the hope of this exercise that students will learn about the placement of locations, identified as portals in the Ingress architecture, and their relevance in the landscape of a community through the language of the augmented reality gaming. Surveys completed by volunteer participants appear to highlight the interactive component to the activity as well as the plethora of geographical and factual information obtained in the process. The merging of Ingress into the geography curriculum can help forge a strong link between students and the geography discipline and potentially increase their motivation to learn more about their hometowns, campus community, and beyond. This emerging learning language promises to offer an exciting new direction for the contemporary education process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, PA, USA

    Michael A. Davis

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  1. Michael A. Davis
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Correspondence to Michael A. Davis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Stanley D. Brunn

  2. Research Centre Deutscher Sprachatlas, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany

    Roland Kehrein

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Davis, M.A. (2020). Learning Geography Through Mobile Gaming. In: Brunn, S., Kehrein, R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3_166

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