Operation Outbreak: Exploring the Affordances and Challenges of Experiential Simulations in Education for Scalability

This literature review examines the effectiveness, affordances, and challenges of experiential learning environments and simulations in K-12 education, situating Operation Outbreak within the broader learning sciences tradition. Simulation-based learning has been shown as a way to connect theory with practice by immersing students in environments where they can apply knowledge, collaborate, and make decisions with real consequences. Operation Outbreak extends this tradition by combining a mobile contact tracing application with a live, schoolwide event in which students experience and analyze the spread of a simulated pathogen in real time. The goal of this review is to identify the conditions under which experiential simulations yield meaningful learning outcomes and to assess the scalability of Operation Outbreak across K-12 educational contexts.