TY - JOUR
TI - How Academics and the Public Experienced Immersive Virtual Reality for
Geo-Education
AU - Bonali, Fabio L.
AU - Russo, Elena
AU - Vitello, Fabio
AU - Antoniou,
AU - Varvara
AU - Marchese, Fabio
AU - Fallati, Luca
AU - Bracchi, Valentina and
AU - Corti, Noemi
AU - Savini, Alessandra
AU - Whitworth, Malcolm
AU - Drymoni,
AU - Kyriaki
AU - Mariotto, Federico Pasquare
AU - Nomikou, Paraskevi and
AU - Sciacca, Eva
AU - Bressan, Sofia
AU - Falsaperla, Susanna
AU - Reitano,
AU - Danilo
AU - van Wyk de Vries, Benjamin
AU - Krokos, Mel
AU - Panieri,
AU - Giuliana
AU - Stiller-Reeve, Mathew Alexander
AU - Vizzari, Giuseppe and
AU - Becciani, Ugo
AU - Tibaldi, Alessandro
JO - Bulletin of Geosciences
PY - 2022
VL - 12
TODO - 1
SP - null
PB - MDPI
SN - null
TODO - 10.3390/geosciences12010009
TODO - immersive virtual reality; geology; photogrammetry; education; Iceland;
Santorini; Etna
TODO - Immersive virtual reality can potentially open up interesting geological
sites to students, academics and others who may not have had the
opportunity to visit such sites previously. We study how users perceive
the usefulness of an immersive virtual reality approach applied to Earth
Sciences teaching and communication. During nine immersive virtual
reality-based events held in 2018 and 2019 in various locations (Vienna
in Austria, Milan and Catania in Italy, Santorini in Greece), a large
number of visitors had the opportunity to navigate, in immersive mode,
across geological landscapes reconstructed by cutting-edge, unmanned
aerial system-based photogrammetry techniques. The reconstructed virtual
geological environments are specifically chosen virtual geosites, from
Santorini (Greece), the North Volcanic Zone (Iceland), and Mt. Etna
(Italy). Following the user experiences, we collected 459
questionnaires, with a large spread in participant age and cultural
background. We find that the majority of respondents would be willing to
repeat the immersive virtual reality experience, and importantly, most
of the students and Earth Science academics who took part in the
navigation confirmed the usefulness of this approach for geo-education
purposes.
ER -