Making learning science engaging
What problems we're trying to solve and how we're doing it!
Inspirit is a 3D life science iOS app + a community of high school students interested in the life sciences. To receive updates on the latest trends in immersive education sign up here:
Happy Friday!
Did this week seem longer than usual? No? Just us? Anyways, we’re happy it’s Friday! Time to take a break, relax, and unwind. We thought we’d walk you through the reasoning behind why we’re building our new iOS app (which goes live in a few weeks). If you haven’t signed up yet, make sure you sign up below.
What is it?
We are releasing a 3D, interactive beta iOS application to learn, practice, and revise life science concepts in a fun and engaging manner. The app contains a giant library of interactive 3D content paired with MCQ quiz flashcards to help students learn and retain difficult concepts. The application is designed to improve learning and increase practice and repetition.
We’ve worked hard to gamify the learning process. Students will be able to earn hearts, trophies, and badges and even earn points that they can use towards in-app or physical rewards! We have many more gamification elements planned for the future to keep learners engaged and excited to learn!
What problem are we trying to solve?
In a nutshell - science is hard. Most rigorous high school educational science content is boring, passive, and non-interactive. Students lose interest, struggle to cope, and eventually may drop out of science courses. Gen Z is the most active generation. They want to be active learners and participate in their learning experiences in the same way they engage with other entertainment content. Gen Z claims they learn more from TikTok than they’ve ever learned in school.
With the rise of online gaming, social media, and even the golden age of television, the tools the education system currently uses are sorely lacking ‘stickiness’. Our goal is to bring back the curiosity in learning science. We decided to meet the high schoolers where they’re at - on their phones! We are building a solution that offers an easy, quick, and engaging way to practice science on the go.
P.S. We didn’t forget about all you Android users! We’ll be releasing the Android version of our app as soon as we fix some of the initial bugs and work out the kinks in our beta iOS app. Thank you for your patience! ❤️
How big is this problem?
There are ~50 million K12 students in the US. At least two-thirds of them enroll in at least one science course during their time in school. COVID and remote learning have shown us the gaps in science education. Students just don’t have the right tools they need to learn science! This past year has only increased the need for a high-quality science learning and practice tool.
While more and more schools are shifting into hybrid learning models, high schoolers have realized that hands-on learning methods are almost non-existent at home, in homework, or during revision and test prep. Research studies show that learning through interactive simulations can dramatically boost retention and engagement. There’s even a high willingness from parents to invest in ed-tech products that offer a sense of learning, progress, and practice for their learners. Parents recognize that their teens need rigorous tools to help them prepare for the 21st century, but with the mental burnout their teens are facing, they also need to be….fun!
But an app isn’t enough…
…and we agree! We throw around the word ‘engaging’ a lot. While teens need the right tools to help them learn, they also need a supportive community. Students need to have facetime with inspirational people they look up to, supportive peers, college student mentors, study groups that fit their needs, and great tutors and teachers. Sometimes, students just need someone to vent to! That’s why we’re creating a Discord community for students around the globe to connect with each other.
Is your teen studying for an AP that isn’t offered at their school? They can study with other students in the same boat as you. Are they interested in medicine but don’t know what it really means to be a doctor? Now they can talk to one! Are they getting ready to apply to college but aren’t sure what they want to major in? They should talk to a college student in an AMA session. All they need to do is join our growing community on Discord.
High school summer internship opportunity!
Summer interns will get to intern for 1 month for 5-10 hours per week in a 4-5 person team with students from around the globe. Teams will work with our co-founder for 30-minutes every day to put together 1 science event every week. Activities included in putting together the events include:
Brainstorming and planning event ideas
Networking and reaching out to potential guest speakers
Working with our product team to create custom 3D labs for events
Creating social media material and marketing events
Planning for new events based on feedback and understanding how to analyze event feedback in a data-driven manner
Cheers,
The Inspirit Team