Differentiated Science Instruction in the Metaverse with Gifted Students: Let’s Visit Kaz Mountains National Park!

A differentiated science activity was created for gifted students. The focus is on Sustainable Development Goal 15 (SDG-15) for life on land, enhancing engagement, self-regulated learning skills, and scientific creativity in gifted students. The activity spanned eight lesson hours, with tasks encouraging observation, inquiry, and creative thinking. Evaluation included achievement, process, and product forms, along with teacher observations and student feedback. Differentiating the learning environment and process through the utilization of Metaverse and immersive virtual reality technologies is crucial as it affords gifted students the chance to explore novel strategies in differentiated science education. In this particular context, three 3D scenes were created and imported into the Imedu Metaverse platform. Students used laptops to view 3D scenes at three separate occasions. During their visits, they examined living and non-living components of the forest ecosystem, including natural life and environmental conditions. Students experienced immersion with Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets. Following this encounter, they participated in querying procedures. Before and after utilizing applications within the Metaverse, efforts were made to enhance awareness of SDG-15 and foster scientific creativity.