The virtual reality field experiences (VRFE) application is a Unity-based virtual reality learning environment that uses an Android smartphone along with a Google Cardboard viewer or other commercial virtual reality viewer. The pilot content module, Grand Canyon Field Experience (GCFE), provides an interactive virtual learning environment along with curriculum and content support materials. Given that introductory geoscience courses are one of the primary STEM courses taken as a natural science elective by undergraduate students across the United States, the Grand Canyon VRFE module alone could provide a consistent customer demand. The VRFE application creates an easily distributable, immersive, virtual field experience related to a physical location. Thus there is a wide potential market across educational institutions, which could be further expanded to K-12 settings and training programs for industrial professionals. The societal impact of this technology is its exploration of new, improved uses for virtual reality as a tool for learning. The commercial impact of this project is as an educational application that engages students in immersive, interactive activities in a virtually-simulated context for learning. This I-Corps L project intends to engage in customer discovery to determine the potential for scaling and sustaining the application.
Field trips can be an effective tool for instructors to create situated opportunities for learning that are contextualized in a particular environment. Field experiences in the physical world can impact students' perceptions and knowledge related about subject matter. From pre-kindergarten to graduate education, as institutional resources are diminishing for effectively engaging large numbers of students in physical world field experiences, create effective alternatives are needed. For large universities with hundreds of students enrolled in introductory science courses, instructors are often unable to provide engaging field experiences due to a range of institutional constraints, including financial resources. Virtual field experiences, while understandably different from physical world experiences, also provide effective learning environments, including being useful for students who have access or mobility issues. The benefits of virtual field experiences related to increasing availability of and engagement with affordable, effective alternatives to physical field experiences are valuable affordances that invite ongoing research and development.
