Traditional safety training media to transfer safety knowledge specific to the rock-related hazards in underground mines are mainly video or manuals, which are inefficient and bring a poor training experience. In this paper, we designed and developed a serious game based on virtual reality (VR) technology in order to efficiently transfer safety knowledge and enable enhanced interactive safety training. For different training purposes and users, we designed two modes, one for professional scaling training suitable for novice scalers, the other for rock-related hazards perception training suitable for other miners. Our game is built based on game engine-Unity3D and equipped with HTC VIVE to improve immersion. The game pipeline is to have trainees basically understand safety knowledge through guided interaction and then make a self-adaptive practice to fully master it. We evaluated the effectiveness of our game, and the results of the comparative experiment show that our game is more efficient than the instructional video in both training modes. The application of our game is proven to have the potential to change the safety situation of underground mines and evaluate the level of safety awareness and risk aversion of the miners in the future. INDEX TERMS Safety training, underground mining, virtual reality, rock-related hazards, serious game.

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Any systems can be expressed by and connected with information. For the safety education system, doing so is essentially a process of safety information dissemination and cognition. Therefore, information is the core of the safety education system. At present, the key factors affecting the effectiveness of safety education are safety demand analysis information, the dissemination and cognitive processes of safety information and information feedback. Research on the construction of a framework model for safety education under the guidance of information flow clears and classifies information-related elements of the safety education process. Therefore, it is conducive to the construction of a safety education system to improve its management level and, through the rational use of information technology, to improve the conversion rate of safety information into safety behaviour. Based on a systematic review and comparison of the existing research perspectives on safety education and information-flow-based safety education (IFSE), this paper analyses the reasons why we need a new perspective on safety education. We introduce information flow into the safety education framework model. The fundamental and expanding elements of safety education propagation are examined and deduced based on information theory. Combined with the connotations of safety education and information flow, this paper analyses the implementation steps of IFSE and applies them to the safety education of new employees in metal and nonmetal mines. In the micro-design, virtual reality technology is used to integrate safety education content and information technology. A new perspective on safety education is created; then, the framework model of IFSE, its implementation steps and models of the processing and utilization processes of safety education are constructed. IFSE is a new perspective for realizing safety education in practice, and the framework model of IFSE provides rigorous theoretical knowledge. Of course, to improve IFSE in practice, more scientific and detailed evaluation methods need to be introduced. This paper is helpful for guiding the safety education theory research from “trivializes situated” to “systematic” and for guiding the design, implementation, assessment and optimization of the safety education practice.