First results (from the 1997 research) about virtual reality use in environmental education. The vr application is about eutrophication phenomenon in lakes. LAKE project from the Earth team / Earth Lab., University of Ioannina, Greece

1. Department of Primary Education
Faculty of Education
University of Ioannina, Greece
(Earth team)
VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
IN
IN
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
FIRST RESULTS
FIRST RESULTS
A. Chalkidis, A. T. Mikropoulos, A. Katsikis

2. the EARTH team
• Presented at 1st Virtual Reality in Education and
Training Conf. (VRET ‘97)
• Loughborough University, 1997

3. the EARTH team
Environmental Education
• Connection between environment and education
• about the environment
• from and through the environment
• for the environment
• Interdisciplinary approach
• The aims of environmental education are
cognitive, scientific, skills development, social
• Promotes the application of open learning
environments, the application of innovations and
the students’ self-activity

4. the EARTH team
Virtual Reality and Environmental
Education
Investigating the goals and practice of
environmental education, we find out that
it has parallel ambitions with virtual
environments
• favoring learning through senses
• providing a sense of freedom
• reducing the tendency for homogeneous
behavior.

5. the EARTH team
The LAKE Project
virtuaL Approach
to the Kernel of
Eutrophication

6. the EARTH team
Phase I - General
• The topic of our research, prototype
development and experimentation, is the
phenomenon of eutrophication in lakes
• Eutrophication has been selected because
the educational outcomes are easily
transfered to other topics
• The topic does not allow experimental
work in the real world

7. the EARTH team
Because of the didactic aims in our first
approach, the steps for the development of
eutrophic situations have been simplified in
order to be easily understood by the students
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–
–
–
–
–
–
increase in the usage of fertilizers
increase in phosphates in the lake
increase in plankton
plankton consumes the dissolved oxygen
decrease in fish population
the lake waters turn to green
the flora around the lake grows up

8. the EARTH team
• Objectives of the virtual environment
– discovery of the factors involved in eutrophic
lakes and their relations
– the consequences of the phenomenon
– the development of children’s critical abilities,
responsibility, and environmental
consciousness.
• We believe that a stage for the observation
of some stable conditions having different
degrees of pollution would be useful.

9. the EARTH team
Structure of Virtual Worlds
• Four linked worlds (virtual lakes)
–
–
One for familiarity with the environment
Three with different degree of pollutioneutrophication
• Bottom, surface, landscape, flora, fish,
oxygen, plankton, salts, information
• 15 starting viewpoints in every lake
–
–
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inside or outside the lake
free or fixed navigation
follow or dive a fish
information and help

10. the EARTH team
Realism of Representation
• We give the most possible naturalism to
objects well known to children (fish, plants)
• We choose simple representations for
plankton, oxygen, and salts (different color
spheres), objects invisible to the naked eye
• The boundaries of the lake have little
naturalism

11. Empirical Research
the EARTH team
The purpose : to investigate the attitude of education
students, toward virtual learning environments
The axes :
– To investigate the quality of our VR applications for
educational use
– To investigate the HCI (different navigation dev/s)
– To compare three educational tools (text,
multimedia, VR)
The hypotheses :
–
–
–
There will be a positive acceptance of VR
Students prefer joystick for navigation
VR will be the most effective educational tool

12. the EARTH team
•
•
•
Academic year 1995 - 1996
Students from Dept. of Primary Education
Sample’s homogeneous profile
– 20-22 years old, females
– some experience on computer use
– no experience on VR
– positive attitude toward new technologies in
education
– knowledge on the phenomenon of
eutrophication disperses
• 4 groups (text, multimedia, VR, control)
• VR group (office, LAKE)

13. the EARTH team
Students’ Attitude toward VR
14
14
12
n=20
10
8
6
4
3
3
2
0
0
Keen
0
Positive Cautious Negative Rejective

14. the EARTH team
Students’ expressions after their first experience
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Category
Keen
Impressiveness
Interest
Engaging / Amusing
Novelty
User Friently
No. of Viewpoints
“Immersion”
Positive
Critical
Training Difficulties
Troublesome
Negative
N
6
6
8
12
4
5
4
10
6
2
5
3
2
n=20
10
(!!!!)

15. the EARTH team
Navigation Devices Comparison
ease in learning
mouse vs joystick
6-2
mouse vs spaceball/spacemouse 6-0
joystick vs spaceball/spacemouse 2-2
ease in using
mouse vs joystick
mouse vs spaceball/spacemouse
joystick vs spaceball/spacemouse
5-3
5-1
2-2
n=11

16. the EARTH team
Teaching Tools Comparison
PRE
POST
DIFF.
GROUP
N
VR
7
MM
6
3.83 2.27 5.5 1.12 1.67 2.21
TEXT
6
3.5 1.26 5.33 0.77 1.83 1.07
Control
6
3.33 0.76 4.17 0.67 0.83 1.35
n=25
Aver Std. Aver Std. Aver Std.
Dev.
Dev
Dev.
3
1.14 5.14 1.58 2.14 0.65

17. Teaching Tools Comparison (2)
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
post
pre
CONTROL
GROUP
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7
TEXT
GROUP
T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6
VR
GROUP
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
MULTIMEDIA
GROUP
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6

18. the EARTH team
Phase II - Development
• We extend the LAKE I environments, adding
information possibilities and combining VR
characteristics with multimedia
• The new interface represents a building with a
variety of activities and the possibility to
connect with the improved virtual lakes of the
LAKE I
• Visitors can be informed by slides, interactive
3D graphs, interactive pictures, a cartoon story
and so on
• Our application consists of eight interconnected
virtual worlds

19. the EARTH team
Phase II - Evaluation
• Academic year 1996-97
• 30 highschool students, aged 13-15, in the context
of an environmental education project
• Students deal with multimedia and VR
applications on environmental topics
• Parts from the applications were selected, so that
different kinds of approaches could be presented
• Students worked both individually and
cooperatively in small groups
• Students contacted with VR environments
impressed and entertained

20. the EARTH team
Phase II - Evaluation
• During our collaboration we asked students’
opinions on related topics
• We used
– pre- and post- closed type questionnaires
– semi-structured interviews and conversations
– observation
– many mainly open type questionnaires
• The statistical analysis is in progress

21. the EARTH team
Phase III
• Usage of sound and the Gouraud shading
technique
• Addition of some simple educational games
• A mathematical model for eutrophication will
be involved
• Expansion of the building
• After data processing, conclusions will be used
for the virtual environments’ enhancement

22. the EARTH team
Some Pictures
from the LAKE II
Environment

23. the EARTH team
An outer view of the virtual building

24. the EARTH team
An inner view of the rooms

25. the EARTH team
Slide projection

26. the EARTH team
Experimenting with 3D graphs

27. the EARTH team
An inner view of the lake without pollution

28. the EARTH team
An inner view of the lake with heavy pollution

29. the EARTH team
A frame from the comic story

30. the EARTH team
A screen for users’ information