V3Geo: A cloud-based repository for virtual 3D models in geoscience

V3Geo is a cloud-based repository for publishing virtual 3D models in geoscience. The system allows storage, search and visualisation of models typically acquired using techniques such as photogrammetry and laser scanning. The platform has been developed to handle models at the range of scales typically used by geoscientists, from microscopic, hand samples and fossils through to outcrop sections covering metres to tens of kilometres. The cloud storage system serves the models to a purpose-built 3D web viewer. Models are tiled to ensure efficient streaming over the internet. The web viewer allows 3D models to be interactively explored without the need for specialist software to be installed. A measurement tool enables users to measure simple dimensions, such as widths, thicknesses, fault throws and more. V3Geo allows very large models comprising multiple sections and is designed to include additional interpretation layers. The specific focus on geoscience data is supported by defined metadata and a classification schema. Public and private storage are available, and public models are assigned Creative Commons licenses to govern content usage. This paper presents V3Geo as a sustainable resource for the geoscience community, including the motivation, main characteristics, and features. Example usage scenarios are highlighted: from undergraduate geology teaching, supporting virtual geoscience education, and preparing virtual field trips based on V3Geo models. Finally, best practise guidelines for preparing 3D model contributions for publication on V3Geo are included as an Appendix.

Karen Layou: A Wider 2-Year Track

Supporting geoscience education across a spectrum of opportunities.

Time to Listen: Children’s Voice in Geoscience Education Research

Arguably the greatest threat facing society is that posed by irreversible climate change. In tandem with mitigating the effects of climate change, we must now make decisions about issues such as renewable energy, sustainable and safe water supplies, management of renewable and non-renewable natural resources, and management of natural disasters. The current school-age generation will see the worst effects of climate change, including greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events; shortages of water and other necessary resources; and dangers due to pollution and toxicity in human environments and the human food chain. The next generation is coming of age as difficult socio-political choices are being made at local and national levels to manage resources and mitigate environmental damage. It is therefore important to center the voices of children and young people in research aiming to address the social, political, and educational dimensions of geoscience topics, including climate change and related topics. This paper proposes the use of Children’s Research Advisory Groups (CRAGs) to meaningfully include children and young people as co-researchers in geoscience-related research.

Teaching Uncertainty: A new framework for communicating unknowns in traditional and virtual field experiences

Managing uncertainty is fundamental to geoscience practice, yet geoscience education generally does not incorporate explicit instruction on uncertainty. To the extent that students are exposed to scientific uncertainty, it is through in-person field experiences. Virtual field experiences – which rely on pictures, maps, and previously collected measurements – should therefore explicitly address uncertainty or risk losing this critical aspect of students' experience. In this paper we present a framework for teaching students to assess and communicate their uncertainty, which is grounded in best expert practices for conveying uncertainty and familiar terms-of-art in geology. The starting point of our framework is the recognition of uncertainty in both geologic data and models, the latter of which we use as an encompassing term to refer to potential geological processes and structures inferred on the basis of incomplete information. We present a concrete application of the framework to geological mapping and discuss how it could enhance student learning in both traditional in-person and virtual experiences. Our framework is extensible in that it can be applied to a variety of geologic features beyond those where uncertainty is traditionally assessed, and can also be applied to geological subdisciplines.

A role for virtual outcrop models in blended learning – improved 3D thinking and positive perceptions of learning

Virtual outcrop models are increasingly used in geoscience education to supplement field-based learning but their efficacy for teaching key 3D spatial thinking skills has been little tested. With the rapid increase in online digital learning resources and blended learning, most recently because of the global COVID-19 pandemic, understanding the role of virtual field environments in supporting and developing skills conventionally taught through field-based teaching has never been more critical. Here we show the efficacy of virtual outcrop models in improving 3D spatial thinking and provide evidence for positive perceptions amongst participants using virtual outcrops in teaching and learning. Our results show that, in a simple, multiple-choice scenario, participants were more likely to choose the 3D block diagram that best represents the structure when using a virtual outcrop (59 %) compared to more traditional representations, such as a geological map (50 %) or field photograph (40 %). We add depth to these results by capturing the perceptions of a cohort of students, within our full participant set, on the use of virtual outcrops for teaching and learning, after accessing a virtual field site and outcrops which they had previously visited during a day's field teaching. We also asked all participants if and how virtual outcrops could be used effectively for teaching and training, recording 87 % of positive responses. However, only 2 % of participants felt that virtual outcrops could potentially replace in-field teaching. We note that these positive findings signal significant potential for the effective use of virtual outcrops in a blended learning environment and for breaking barriers to increase the equality, diversity and inclusivity of geoscience field skills and teaching.

Exploring Best Practices in Geoscience Education: Adapting a Video/Animation on Continental Rifting for Upper-Division Students to a Lower-Division Audience

Well-crafted and scientifically accurate videos and animations can be effective ways to teach dynamic Earth processes such as continental rifting, both in live course offerings as well as in online settings. However, a quick search of the internet reveals too few high-quality videos/animations describing deep Earth processes. We have modified a hybrid 10.5 min video/animation about continental rifting and the formation of new oceans and passive continental margins created for an upper-division geology audience, retailoring it for a lower-division geology audience. A key challenge in successfully modifying such resources is aligning the cognitive load that the video/animation imposes on students, in part related to the technical geoscientific jargon used in explaining such phenomena, with that which they encounter on these topics in their textbooks and classrooms. We used expert feedback obtained at a 2019 GeoPRISMS (Geodynamic Processes at Rifting and Subducting Margins) workshop in San Antonio to ensure the accuracy of the science content of the upper-division video. We followed this with a review of the terminology and language used in the video/animation, seeking to align the video narrative with the technical language used in introductory geology offerings, which we based on examining five current introductory geology textbooks and feedback from students in introductory geoscience courses. The revised introductory-level video/animation was piloted in an online introductory course, where it provided an improved conceptual understanding of the related processes of continental rifting, opening new oceans, and formation of passive continental margins.

Expert Perspectives & Methodological Excerpts: Stitching a thesis quilt

<p>Much like many crafted items, research must be functional and fit for purpose, but there's no reason why it can't also be beautiful, creative, and expressive.</p><p>In working with teenagers and young people on geoscience education and climate literacy, it became increasingly important to me to find ways to express my research that would connect with people who didn't have a foundation (yet, or at all) in academic discourse. My PhD thesis is therefore written as a creative semi-fictional epistolary; a collection of documents that tell the story of the research from the first tentative proposal to my would-be supervisor, to the final submission. I made the choice to produce a creative thesis for my student co-researchers and other readers, but the person who benefitted most from it was me. The creative process in designing my thesis was fulfilling, fun, and facilitated a deeper and more meaningful engagement with my own research. </p><p>In discussing my thesis with another researcher, trying to explain how and why I was writing geoscience education research through annotations and poems and chatlogs, I suggested the metaphor of a quilt. A quilt is inherently a functional object that must meet certain qualifying standards in order to be accepted and used. But also, a quilt can be an intricately crafted artwork, reflective not just of its use, but of the person who makes it; their choices, their joys, their cares. As a quilt is an artwork with a specific useful function of keeping someone warm at night, so too a thesis (or paper or project) can be artistic and creative while also still having useful functions of building knowledge, generating data, or developing theory. </p><p>So, long story short, I also sewed a thesis quilt, to express both the process and outcome of my doctoral research as a piece of fabric art!</p>

Rising To The Challenge: Addressing climate literacy in Ireland through the lens of student rights

<p>A recent geoscience education project, undertaken in Irish secondary schools using a children's rights based methodology that incorporated student voice in the design, implementation, and analysis, began with a focus on "Earth Science" but ended, through the influence of the student co-researchers, with a focus on climate literacy. Teenagers have seen the writing on the wall, as sea levels and global temperatures rise, and traditional career paths and global superpowers fall. </p><p>Following on from the aforementioned project, an international comparative study currently ongoing seeks to establish global best practice in geoscience education and climate literacy, with the aim of facilitating improvement in the Irish context. Research suggests Irish school students are eager to learn about the Earth, but are frustrated by classes on climate change that are not actionable and do not address the systemic causes of the climate catastrophe. There is an appetite among teenagers and young people to learn more, but simply adding more classes or more class time isn't sufficient, the classes must be appropriately challenging, honest, and action-focused. This ongoing research seeks to provide guidance and tools to achieve that in Irish formal and informal education. </p><p>Thus, in this presentation, the findings of a recent geoscience and climate change education project will be discussed in the context of how the expressed needs and opinions of the participating students have impacted the ongoing international comparative study seeking to improve Ireland's geoscience and climate literacy.</p>