Studying Native American Culture in an Immersive Virtual Environment

On-a-slant village was inhabited by the Mandan, a sedentary native north American tribe, up until the late18th century. The on-a-slant "virtual village" has been constructed by the Worldwide Web Instructional Committee at North Dakota State University using archaeological records and other source materials to authenticallyre-create that space with 3D-rendered graphics. The environment now serves as an exploratory, immersive environment for teaching middle-school students about long-ago society. This paper describes the construction of the virtual village and its earth lodges, the software agent avatars who inhabit the space, and the role-playing game the students play in order to learn about the Mandan and their culture. Data collected over three years show that significant learning is accomplished through playing the on-a-slant game.