Applying a Virtual Reality Platform in Environmental Chemistry Education To Conduct a Field Trip to an Overseas Site

Abstract

Field trips are a common activity for instructors to engage students and give them a first-hand understanding of a subject, especially in environmental chemistry. However, the planning and execution for a field trip is logistically challenging and demanding of human and material resources. Here, we demonstrate the conduct of a virtual overseas field trip for 74 students with the use of a web-based virtual reality (VR) application. From the feedback after the virtual field trip, students reported general receptiveness toward such use of VR technology.

The Effect of Real and Virtual Construction Field Trips on Students’ Perception and Career Aspiration

“…Jolley, Kennedy, Reyna, et al [18] developed a VFT for tertiary students in an introductory-level geology course at the University of Canterbury. In a recent study [19], a virtual reality platform was applied in environmental chemistry education to conduct a field trip to an overseas site, thus reducing the associated costs and environmental impacts that would have been associated with an RFT. The VFT field trip, thus, presents an environmentally friendly yet innovative approach to allow learning among students, while minimizing the related contributions to GHG emissions.…”

Lessons learned from a project examining the learning outcomes and experiences in 360o videos

“…Research on the educational uses of 360 o videos, while not yet adequately systemized, seems to cover a rather wide and diverse set of learning domains and sciences. They are commonly used for delivering virtual tours to places of interest, museums, and archaeological sites (e.g., Argyriou et al, 2020;Skondras et al, 2019), as well as for presenting experiments and medical procedures (e.g., Ardisara & Fung, 2019;Sankaran et al, 2019). They have been also used for the teaching of subjects related to Ecology (e.g., Fokides & Kefalinou, 2020;Ritter et al, 2019), Physics (Wu et al, 2019), Physical Education (Kittel et al, 2020;Paraskevaidis & Fokides, 2020), Religion Education (Johnson, 2018), language learning (Berns et al, 2018;Xie et al, 2019), Public Health Education (Dawson et al, 2019), Safety Education (Pham et al, 2018), and for delivering virtual courses (Lee et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, they noted that the novelty of the experience (Lin et al, 2019) led to increased levels of enjoyment, satisfaction (e.g., Chang et al, 2019;Lee et al, 2017), and motivation (Fokides & Arvaniti, 2020;King-Thompson, 2017;Xie et al, 2019). In fact, students' responses regarding their experiences were highly positive, characterizing them as positive, useful, engaging, and that 360 o videos facilitated their comprehension/learning of the subjects they were taught (Fung et al, 2019;Huang et al, 2019;Ulrich et al, 2019). On the negative side, distraction and/or disorientation are significant issues (Ardisara & Fung, 2018).…”

How Should Chemistry Educators Respond to the Next Generation of Technology Change?

“…For example, Bennie et al found that a virtual reality program was a better learning environment for visualization than traditional approaches such as molecular models, textbook images, and the computer-screen to teach enzyme kinetics [16]. Virtual reality also offers a way to provide a form of laboratory experience for online courses [17], and Fung et al found that using a virtual reality field trip for their environmental chemistry course was more convenient and less costly than its physical equivalent but produced comparable results [18].…”