Virtual glacier tour for pupils

Take a glacier hike without fitness and without physical exertion: VR makes it possible. The Pedagogical Department of the German Education Directorate recently purchased a set of 30 VR glasses, which are now available to interested schools. With these, for example, virtual expeditions to the Suldenferner in Vinschgau are possible.

For several years now, the Pedagogical Department of the German Education Directorate has been organising a glaciology camp for schools. The programme includes a glacier hike on the Suldenferner below the Ortler. "This requires stamina and endurance. Not all pupils are able to do this or dare to walk for hours across the glacier," says instructor Christian Aspmair. Yet the topic is of particular importance for all schools in South Tyrol. "That's when the idea of a 'Google Expedition' was brought to us. It is a collection of various didactic offers using virtual reality technology," adds project coordinator Susanne Hellrigl.

Interactive learning including panoramic view

The project was co-financed by the Südtiroler Sparkasse Foundation. Konrad Bergmeister, President of the Foundation, is convinced of the benefits: "If we can use it to give pupils and teachers access to topics that they would otherwise only approach in a very theoretical way, an important goal has been achieved. Interactive learning makes comprehension much easier". Peter Daldos from the company "Spherea3D" in Bolzano has technically implemented and coordinated the project.

In the virtual glacier trip, everyone in the class is given VR goggles with which they go into the middle of a virtual 360-degree panoramic landscape. In this landscape, they can look all around and up and down - just as if they were there. The teacher is given a tablet on which all the descriptive texts are stored. Additional information is displayed to the children and young people about particularly interesting places (POI: Points of Interest). The teachers can draw attention to special features directly on the tablet with finger drawings and also check whether everyone has the point in question in view. Questions and answers further deepen this virtual learning unit. The Sulden glacier can currently be "virtually walked" from six different positions.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site GEOPARC Bletterbach can also be experienced via Google Expedition.

Source: suedtirolnews