VIRTUAL REALITY FIELD-TRIPS FOR STUDYING THE GEOLOGY OF NATIONAL PARKS: RECENT ADVANCES & PEDAGOGY

Engaging and retaining the interest of the typical non-science Major in an Introductory Geology course has been the Holy Grail of geoscience education. Even as debate continues about which segments of a student's K-12 background should be strengthened, there is much that can be achieved, at the college level itself. Recent advances in multimedia technology and educational pedagogy of learner-styles have brought educators at a point-of-convergence, to re-think and re-tool what we would like to teach with more efficient, interactive and effective techniques. Just because virtual reality field-trips have been authored since two decades should not mean that we as technologically- and pedagogically-savvy educators should not re-design a time-tested idea. In fact, it should position us educators at a considerable advantage, so we can choose elements that have worked in these models and discard those that have not.

This paper showcases a new model for creating virtual-reality field-trips for studying geology using the U.S. National Parks - a model which draws heavily on successes from the past and re-designs them with State-of-the-Art instructional technology available to educators today. The 'Virtual-Reality Field Trips' project was developed over the past three years and published nation-wide in January, 2010. Central to the design was data collected from surveys of geology teachers for identifying the 'most critical' concepts in a introductory-level geology course. A total of thirty concepts were then linked to the most appropriate national park. After creation of storyboards for each park, the author collected the highest-quality media footage from the parks - including high-resolution photographs, high-definition video and 360-degree panoramas.

A demonstration of the Field Trip modules will be given using the concept of Sedimentary Rocks and the setting of the Arches National Park and Capitol Reef National Park. Key features of the module will be highlighted, both from the teacher and a student perspectives and will include a discussion of techniques used for increasing a student's Time-on-Task, promoting interactivity and critical-thinking skills by mimicking an actual field-trip experience wherein a participant can exercise free-will as for choosing where to go and what to see while in the field.