Abstract:

The Polytechnic University of the Litoral in cooperation with governmental and private entities, in the context of social responsibility and the National Plan of Good Living of the Ecuadorian state, have developed a platform to promote the environmental education of infants. This first pilot virtualized the Prosperina Protective Forest located in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador. With the objective of introducing elementary students to the virtual forest before making a real visit; in this way they know previously the environment to which they are going to visit, they are given valuable advice as to how they should behave in different situations and highlights data or important facts of the site. The virtual forest has been designed using 3D modeling and interactive, entertaining designs, and the mixture of real content (images, audios and real routes) and to raise awareness about: recycling, prevention and protection of native species.

This project has been developed approximately in 1 year by students of Computer Engineering as part of their community practices; managing to develop their capacities to solve real problems using ICTs and mobile technologies. In addition, develop your soft kills: creativity, leadership and teamwork.

The real forest has stations in certain areas of the forest that are sent in real time sound and climatological data, so the virtual platform is always updated at the level of this information, which gives a greater reality as it is dynamic in certain measure. Currently, we are in the third phase of the project which consists of adding self-assessments that allow us to measure the progress of users in the virtual platform; In this way, feed back to the infant and know what is the level of understanding achieved in each forest station.
It is expected by 2019 to launch the application for use in schools and colleges nationwide.

Keywords:

Forest, virtual, 3D, learning, prevention.