Abstract:

Field trips to geologic sites represent an important element in Geology teaching. The diverse nature of earth’s features makes each geological setting different from one another. Visits to only few geological settings are often not adequate to illustrate the numerous basic geological phenomena and relationships to students. Thus, trips to different locations are essential for student to gain greater understanding of the geological processes of the earth. However, budget and time constraints make more frequent trips not feasible. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for designing a virtual field trip for geology teaching with a focus on examining tasks during virtual field trip. Virtual field trips, which are digital representations of the real locations, have long been widely used as a cost-effective alternative to real field trips. Since virtual field trips only provides user with synthetic experience, designing an appropriate virtual field trip, which provides realistic experience still remains a challenge. The framework focuses on the use of image based virtual reality to create virtual field trips for use in geology education. Image-based virtual reality refers to the use of stitched panoramic photographic images to create a realistic virtual environment. The framework highlights the use of embedded multimedia elements such as video, audio and text in the image-based virtual environment to enhance the trip experience by allowing user to perform examining task. A prototype web-based system was developed to illustrate the concept. Besides creating an alternative method to deal with current limitation of frequent field trips, the prototype system offers users with unlimited, cost-effective virtual trips. For enhanced learning, the prototype could be useful as a location preview prior to an actual trip as well as a practice and review tool after a field trip. Preliminary study on the systems’ use among users elicits very encouraging response from them; indicating its potential as a useful teaching and learning for students and teachers.

Keywords:

Image-based vr, virtual reality, field trip, geology trip.