[G-03] Geoscience education from elementary school to university students

[G03-03] Virtual field trip: Practices of online geology education using 360-degree images

*Tomohiko Sato¹, Sanefumi Shoji², Yusuke Kobayashi², Kenji Kawai³ (1.Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2.LiVEARTH, Inc., 3.Department of Earth and Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo)

Keywords:Earth Science education, virtual reality, field trip, 360-degree image, online education

Field trips are essential in Earth Science education, especially in geology, as the opportunity for students to observe outcrops multidirectionally on the spots; however, the prosecution of field trips has become more difficult for reasons such as human resource, safety, etc. To make matters worse, many field trips were cancelled or shortened in the recent COVID-19 restrictions. In order to supplement “actual” field trips, we developed a virtual field trip tool for entry-level geology class, focusing on immersive horizontally-movable experience using evenly spaced 360-degree images (Shoji et al., 2022). As a first step, Jogashima in Miura Peninsula was selected as the observation site. Supposing the use in BYOD (bring your own device)-style, the tool was implemented as web application that can be accessed from various devices via web browsers. We demonstrated the virtual fieldtrips to the third/fourth-year university students, who do not specialize in Earth sciences, both in in-person class (FY2018-19; n=180) and in on-demand class (FY2020-21; n=273). We conducted questionnaires and evaluated the contribution of virtual field trips to their understanding of the geological structures in the outcrop. All the evaluations of the classes, the usability of the tool, the effect of assisting understanding the geological structures, etc. were statistically significant positive, regardless of whether students have experience in Earth science/field trip or not. In addition, the results in the on-demand classes were equivalent to the in-person ones. Above all, the horizontal movability was highly regarded as fun to discover the observation points individually. Taking these results, we are planning to improve the virtual field trip tool and put it into practice as preparation/review for “actual” field trip to bring out educational effect of a limited time in the outcrop.

[Reference]
Shoji et al. (2022) Development of BYOD-style Horizontally Movable Virtual Reality Field Trip Tool for Earth Science Education. Education of Earth Science, 74, 13-30.
https://doi.org/10.18904/chigakukyoiku.74.1_13