LEARNING
FRONTIER Created by ACED

THE NEXT FRONTIER IS HOW WE LEARN

Explore what
learning can be.

A universe of possibility.
Open to everyone.

Enter the frontier Free to explore. Made to share.
AN OPEN LEARNING R&D STUDIOKeep exploring

01 / A NEW FIELD OF POSSIBILITY

What if learning
worked differently?

An idea you can move. A decision you can rehearse. A world you can change.

Learning Frontier is an open learning research and development studio created by ACED. We build experiences that turn curiosity into understanding—and share them freely.

03 / CURIOSITY, WITH A METHOD

We make things.
Then we ask better questions.

Every experience is an invitation to learn—and an opportunity to understand how learning itself can work better.

01

Ask something worth exploring.

Start with a real learning challenge. An idea that’s hard to see. A skill that needs practice. A question with room for discovery.

02

Make the idea tangible.

Build something people can change, choose, test, or create. Let the learner become part of what happens.

03

Learn from the experience.

Listen to learners. Notice where understanding grows and where the design gets in the way. Refine, then try again.

04

Share what moves us forward.

Release useful experiences freely. Share the questions, design choices, and discoveries behind the work.

04 / SMALL SPARKS. WHOLE NEW WORLDS.

Learning takes
many forms.

We follow the learning question.
The format grows from there.

01Widgets & tools

One idea, made visible. Small interactive tools that help people see a relationship, test an assumption, or solve a problem.

A MOMENT OF CLARITY
02Games & activities

Choices with consequences. Meaningful challenges, room to experiment, and feedback that makes the next attempt more informed.

A REASON TO TRY AGAIN
03Labs & simulations

Systems you can explore. Change a variable, make a prediction, and investigate what happens. Planet Lab is our first exploration.

Enter Planet Lab
04Course experiences

A connected journey from curiosity to capability. Guided practice, thoughtful feedback, and something meaningful to take into the real world.

A JOURNEY THAT BUILDS

05 / FROM THE STUDIO

FIELD NOTE
001DESIGN NOTE · PLANET LAB

Give curiosity
something to do.

A planet becomes a learning experience when you can ask “what if?”—and do something about it.

In Planet Lab, a prediction comes before an experiment. You change one variable, see the result, and compare it with what you expected. A surprising answer becomes a reason to look closer.

Read the design note

The question behind the experience

Can making and testing a prediction help people explain how distance, greenhouse warming, and reflectivity affect a planet’s temperature?

Why start with one variable?

The guided missions hold other controls fixed so a relationship is easier to see. Free exploration then opens all three controls, giving learners room to form questions of their own.

What the model makes visible

The experience connects an action to an immediate result. A brighter world reflects more sunlight. Moving closer to a fixed Sun-like star increases incoming energy. A chosen greenhouse warming offset raises the modeled temperature.

Where the model stops

This is a simplified energy-balance model. It does not reproduce a planet’s complete climate, and temperature alone cannot establish whether a world supports life. Those boundaries belong inside the learning experience.

What we want to learn next

We want to understand whether learners can explain a new scenario after exploring. That is a research question, not a demonstrated result. As the studio tests and refines its work, we’ll share what we find.

Try the experience

06 / POSSIBILITY BELONGS TO EVERYONE

Knowledge opens worlds.
Let’s leave the door open.

Everything we publish under Learning Frontier is free to explore and share. Bring it into a classroom. Try it with a friend. Pass along something that changes how you see.

01

Open access.

No course fees. No membership required to learn.

02

Made to travel.

Share the experiences and keep their credits with them.

03

Room for everyone.

Clear language, thoughtful design, and different ways to participate.

A note on sharing

Share public experience links freely. Follow the credits and reuse details provided with individual resources; third-party material may have its own terms. Keep private progress and return links to yourself. Free access does not imply that every project’s source code is released.

07 / THE STUDIO BEHIND THE EXPLORATION

Ambitious by design.
Generous by nature.

Learning Frontier is the open learning R&D initiative created by ACED.

We bring learning design, creative technology, and a spirit of experimentation together to push what’s possible in digital learning.

Our mission is to expand what learning can be by designing, testing, and freely sharing experiences that turn curiosity into understanding and capability.

We’re building a growing body of work—and sharing what we discover along the way.

Meet ACED

THE NEXT QUESTION COULD BE YOURS

What should we
explore next?

Bring a learning challenge, a new perspective, or a partnership that helps extraordinary learning reach more people.

Start a conversation

Partnerships and commissioned experiences through ACED.