ENHANCING VIRTUAL GEOLOGICAL FIELD TRIPS WITH VIRTUAL VEHICLES AND VIRTUAL SPECIMENS

Many previous workers have created virtual geological field trips as teaching aids using formats such as HTML, QTVR, DMM and KML. Almost all such digital field trips share a common template consisting of a sequence of field stops marked on a map or DEM with clickable links to descriptive text, field photographs, laboratory data, or movies viewed in pop-up windows or placemark balloons. Virtual field trips are useful pedagogical tools especially when viewed immediately before or after actual class trips. However in a symposium honoring Wally Bothner, it would be unwise to suggest that a virtual field experience could ever replace corporal reality. Just as undergraduate science labs do an unsatisfactory job of emulating laboratory research or professional scientific practice so the virtual field trip distorts reality by presenting students with canned content that restricts their perspective. Given that students cannot actually visit many outcrops during an undergraduate course, even when their geology departments are ideally located, we have tried to develop enhancements that will add to the pedagogical value of virtual fieldwork. These include: (i) self-drive field tours where the student controls the route taken by a virtual vehicle; (ii) hidden field stops that the student must discover by hunting for suitable outcrops at the appropriate stratigraphic level or in the right tectonic setting; and (iii) virtual hand specimens that can be figuratively picked up and examined at the outcrop using javascript controls to zoom in upon, and rotate, the specimen. We have also developed the method described by De Paor (2009) whereby virtual specimens can be created by students after they have collected real specimens on an actual field trip using only their cellphone cameras. Collectively, these resources should prove useful both for day trips and extended studies such as field camp courses. Despite their limitations, virtual field trips can greatly enhance the total field experience. They work well as a classroom tool to prepare students for an upcoming field trip. Plus, they are a lot better than nothing in cases where a student has disabilities limiting mobility, or where field areas are inaccessible – for example, on a different continent or planet. De Paor, D.G. 2009. Virtual Specimens. EOS Transactions AGU, v.90,  #IN22A-02.