Integrating Tools for Geospatial Alpine Ecosystem Education into a Remote Biogeography Classroom

Keywords: Virtual Reality, ecosystem education, hybrid learning, alpine ecosystems, species range shifts
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

Field education is fundamental to learning in the bio-geosciences, providing diverse benefits including learning and engagement, especially in the affective domain, promoting pro-environmental behaviours, collaborative relationships and instructor-student rapport; and fostering retention and diversity relative to lecture situations. During the 2020-21, remote online transition, actual field learning was prevented, and even under normal conditions, may pose challenges of access, especially to field sites that are remote from classrooms. Virtual, Augmented Reality and other digital and geospatial tools that have become available on open education platforms present supplements or alternatives to field learning. My lab developed a series of digital immersive and interactive materials for examining alpine ecosystems in BC and the Karakoram, their biodiversity and distribution shifts in response to climate change. The materials included an immersive digital field trip to explore species, ecosystems and landforms in a portion of S. Chilcotin Mountains Provincial Park, BC; and an interactive, mapped dataset and ESRI Storymap comparing alpine plant elevation limits between historical (ca. 1915) and present day (2016) records in the region, the latter obtained by the author. The digital tools were piloted in two sections of a 3rd year undergraduate course (Biogeography and Global Change). I present anonymous student feedback and observations about student response to these resources. Students responded very positively to the VR experience, storymap and, to a lesser degree, the assessments. I discuss the implications of the findings of flexible, hybrid learning, and some lessons learned about creating and integrating similar digital materials into the classroom.