USING VIDEO GAME ENGINES TO BUILD INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY VISUALIZATIONS FOR OUTREACH AND EDUCATION IN FIELDS OF GEOLOGY

While studying geosciences, we are constantly working with scales that are incomprehensible to the human mind, whether it be the vastness of space or the length of the geologic time scale. For students, it is challenging to try and understand the magnitude of these scales as they are usually exploring 2D diagrams, or a short video meant to put the scale into perspective. Many educators have built scale models that span a college campus to attempt to give a 3D representation of the geologic time scale or the distances between the planets in our solar system, however those are time-consuming to prepare and often face cancellation if the weather turns unfavorable. An interactive 3D model is important for students because the model provides an environment for kinesthetic-visual learning and they will be able to understand the concepts better because they could feel the size comparison, even if a model is at 1/1000th scale. Video games could provide a solution. By using a game engine such as Unity or Unreal Engine that can also support virtual and augmented reality, it is possible to build virtual worlds where students can walk in and explore without any preparation. The focus of this project is to build a VR accessible 3D game using the Unity engine that will project a scale model of the solar system where the student begins at the sun and then can walk to each planet to explore topics pertaining to each. While wearing a VR headset, a student would be able to look back and see how far they have come and see how far apart the planets actually are in comparison to one another. For more complexity within the model, different program scripts can be attached to each planet to control their behavior, defining how each object will rotate on its axis and what path the orbits will follow around the sun. The ability to incorporate physics in this way is invaluable to a model and cannot be easily simulated any other way. Another aim of this project is to use the same concepts as the 3D solar system to build a trackway that follows the geologic time scale. Like in the solar system model, a student could wear a VR headset and walk along the timeline and explore the history of the Earth. This particular model could be an asset to introductory historical geology classes since it could be used as a parallel and supplementary activity to the class throughout the semester to aid in understanding.