Sustainable Development Goals
Abstract/Objectives
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of the integration of augmented reality into water resources education on sixth graders’ water knowledge and vocabulary knowledge. Water resources education must start from young ages which may enable students to develop the skills and knowledge of water resources. It is hoped that by implementing the integration of augmented reality into water resources education, students will be acquainted with the knowledge of the importance of water resources, skills and related-English vocabulary acquisition. This study adopts mixed methods, and the research object is the sixth grader of S elementary school in New Taipei county where the researcher practices in. The participants will receive a 7-week English instruction of water resources education. The teaching location will be the normal classroom and the computer laboratory in S school with one class in the first week and two lessons in the remaining weeks; 40 minutes for each class. The course is divided into four major themes: water use, the water cycle, water footprint, and water conservation. The research tools include (1) water resources knowledge pre- and post-tests, (2) water resources vocabulary pre- and post-tests, (3) observations (4) reflection notes (5) interview.
Results/Contributions

      Regarding to the first research question on how the water resources AR-assisted English curriculum affected the sixth graders’ acquisition of water knowledge, the results of the study revealed that the instruction helped improve students’ understanding of the water knowledge. Through augmented reality and meaningful materials, the students knew more about the concepts.

     With respect to the second research question on how the water resources AR-assisted English curriculum affected sixth graders’ learning of vocabulary knowledge, the results of the study showed that the instruction helped improve students’ familiarity with the target words. The main reason was that the students were impressed by the images and sounds while interacting with digital materials in AR.

     To address the last research question regarding the challenges the teacher encountered in the water resources AR-assisted English curriculum, the results of the classroom observation and teaching reflection showed two main challenges. One was the Internet disconnection. The other one was students’ different computer competency level. Since the teacher spent more time dealing with different problems, she had difficulty controlling the teaching pace.

Keywords
Water Resources EducationAugmented RealityVocabulary Knowledge