DIGITAL SOLUTIONS TO PROVIDING INTERPRETIVE VISITS TO SITES OF GEOLOGICAL INTEREST

Much attention has been focused on the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis in loss of fieldwork experiences for geoscience majors; we have also lost guided interpretive walks for the general public, as well as early field experiences in K-12 education. Education programs at the Paleontological Research Institution have for over 25 years included summer hikes in local State Parks for audiences of any background and school programs for children of any age from schools that visit PRI’s Museum of the Earth. Such group gatherings are not practical under current COVID-related restrictions.

Potential participants can, however, still visit most of the outdoor locations of our geological interpretive walks, and thus alternatives may exist to get people into the field, even if we’re not with them. Toward this end, we have developed digital geology tours (hosted by izi.TRAVEL) that can be downloaded to cell phones and played in local places of special geological interest. These tours are built around audio narration and can include images and short, low resolution videos. Tours being developed include both some walkable from downtown Ithaca and others in more rural locations, so can be accessed by public audiences from a variety of locations within the community.

Content from these tours complements online content about Central New York geology at PRI’s Earth@Home website. This site contains a wide variety of images, maps, and videos. Virtual fieldwork experiences exist for selected sites where we also have digital tours, such as Taughannock State Park. Such VFEs, which contain Gigapans and other specialized imagery, are designed for use in secondary school classrooms and college classes.