Walking Through the American Colonies: A VR Time-Travel Experience

Technology Required:

ClassVR VR headsets
Access to Eduverse
Teacher device with ClassVR portal
Student notebooks or worksheets

Lesson Summary

Students will “travel back in time” using Eduverse VR scenes to explore daily life in three major colonial regions: New England, Middle Colonies, and Southern Colonies.
They will gather evidence about climate, jobs, resources, and settlement patterns.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to:

Identify key features of the three colonial regions (New England, Middle, Southern).

Explain how geography and natural resources influenced the economy and daily life of each region (SS3G3, SS3E1).

Give examples of jobs, goods, and services produced in different colonies.
Describe what daily life looked like for colonists using evidence collected from VR exploration (SS3H3).

Materials

VR headsets
Eduverse scenes resembling colonial towns or early settlements (suggested scenes):

Colonial Village Marketplace
Early Harbor & Shipyard
Plantation Grounds
Colonial Farmstead

"Colonial Regions Chart" worksheet

Pencils

Map of Colonial America

Lesson Procedure
1. Introduction

Show a map of the 13 colonies on the board.

Ask: “What do you think life was like for settlers 300 years ago?”
“Why would people choose to live in one region instead of another?”

Explain that students will use VR to visit different colonial regions and record what they observe about life at that time.

Review VR safety expectations.

2. VR Time-Travel Exploration

Students will visit three Eduverse VR scenes, each representing one colonial region.
Spend ~6–7 minutes per scene.

Scene 1 — New England Colonies

Suggested Eduverse scene: Colonial Village Marketplace
Student Tasks:

Notice weather, buildings, and land type.
Look for clues about jobs (blacksmith, shipbuilder).
Identify natural resources (timber, fish).

Teacher Prompts inside Eduverse notes:

“Why are harbor towns important in this region?”
“What kinds of goods are being made or traded?”

Scene 2 — Middle Colonies

Suggested Eduverse scene: Colonial Farmstead
Student Tasks:

Look for farms, mills, and livestock.
Identify crops (wheat, barley, oats).

Notice tools used for work.

Teacher Prompts:

“Why were these colonies called the ‘breadbasket’ colonies?”
“What human and natural resources do you see?”

Scene 3 — Southern Colonies

Suggested Eduverse scene: Plantation Grounds
Student Tasks:

Observe the size of farmland.
Identify crops such as tobacco or rice.
Note the warm climate and fertile soil.

Teacher Prompts:

“How does the climate affect what colonists grow?”
“What kinds of work would people do here?”

3. Group Discussion (7 minutes)

Students gather in small groups and fill in their Colonial Regions Chart for each region, comparing:

Climate
Geography and natural resources
Jobs
Goods produced
How people lived day-to-day

Ask guided questions:

“Which region had the most farms?”
“Where would shipbuilders most likely work?”
“Which region looked like the hardest place to live? Why?”

4. Whole-Class Wrap-Up (5 minutes)

Create a class anchor chart titled “Life in the Colonies: What We Discovered.”

Ask students to share something new they learned about each region.
Connect responses back to standards: settlement, economy, and geography.

Exit Ticket Question:
“Which colonial region would you choose to live in and why?”

Assessment
✔ Formative

Notes taken during VR exploration

Completion of Colonial Regions Chart
Group discussion participation

✔ Summative (Optional)

Create a poster or Seesaw/Flip video comparing two regions

Short quiz on colonial regions and resources

VR “field journal” entry written from the perspective of a colonist

Differentiation
Support for Emerging Learners
Provide labeled visuals of colonial jobs and tools
Offer sentence starters for worksheets
Allow verbal responses instead of written
Extension for Advanced Learners
Compare colonial economies to modern regional economies
Identify goods that were exported vs. imported
Explain how physical geography influenced trade routes

For Students Sensitive to VR

Use 360° tablet view alternative
Allow shorter VR experiences