ESSEA Electronic Poster






Virtual Fieldwork Experiences:

Real Inquiry in Virtual Environments

 
 

Why does this place look the way it does?


The Mars Rover missions illustrate well what we are setting out to do.  Like teachers in under-resourced school, NASA can’t afford to send scientists to Mars, at least not in a flesh-and-blood sense.  The costs are too high and the physical risks too great.  It would take a long time too.  These are the same kinds of challenges teachers face in planning field trips (though the scales differ by several orders of magnitude).

 

Somehow though, real scientists are doing real science without actually visiting the place they are studying.  As in a “real” field trip, these scientists can choose to take a closer look at things of their choosing – within certain limitations, of course.  In line with the goals we have for our pedagogical approach, these scientists are using their understandings of local processes to understand processes taking place somewhere they themselves cannot physically visit.  The layering in the rock of the rim of Mars’ Victoria crater looks strikingly like the fossilized dunes of Zion National Park, for example.

 

In a way, we as the creators of VFEs are playing the role of the robotic rovers.  We use some of the same techniques – panoramic photos for one.  We may also be able to return to the site to gather more data as a result of our students’ questions just as scientists can guide the rovers to gather more data.

 

This session will show examples of VFEs of different formats and scales. 

 

 

Don Duggan-Haas, Carlyn Buckler, Chris Besemer, Richard Kissel, & Robert Ross

Paleontological Research Institution and its Museum of the Earth

Ithaca, NY



Example VFEs

Guided

Mapping & Scale

Duggan-Haas



Norwich, NY

Guided Inquiry

Eroded Plateau

Miller


Guided

Unconformity; Landscape Regions

Spanneut et al


Akron Falls, NY

Guided

Escarpment, Karst

Detbarn



See more examples in the VFE database.


Supporting Documents:

  1. Fieldwork Graphic Organizer

  2. Make You Own Powers of Ten Tutorial

  3. The Mother of All VFEs (Mars)

  4. VFE Database

  5. VFE Vignette



Related links:

 

Abstract: