ABSTRACT
In times of the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers on all levels have had to adapt to an online or hybrid teaching environment. People in geography, a discipline that traditionally values field trips to connect theory to practice, have had to find online alternatives for educational activities that normally would have taken place in the field. This has led to several innovative practices, which, however, have only to a limited degree been purposively tested for efficacy because of the ad-hoc, enforced nature of the required changes. This project deals with this issue by studying, through student workshops dealing with the creation of online didactic walking routes in two cities, how students can obtain specific geographical competences such as interpreting different historical layers that collectively shape the current urban fabric through online cartography. We found that students reported clear improvements in geographical reasoning skills, regarding both GIS and heritage interpretation. There were no clear patterns regarding the role of familiarity with the studied city for the quality of the produced story maps. On final reflection, we argue that online cartographic exercises are a valuable addition to the geographers' educational toolkit to bounce forward to a more resilient, reflective educational practice after the pandemic.
ABSTRACT
Virtual field trips (VFTs) are a way to overcome travel restrictions and continue to explore distant spaces, foreign issues, and learning opportunities. The intent of this article is to show how VFTs are used in learning geography in the context of education for sustainable development (ESD). The goal is to develop a didactic approach to the use of virtual fieldwork in ESD with geography teachers in pre-service and in-service teacher training at two universities. This article has the following aims. The first is to explain what a VFT is from a theoretical and technical perspective, which raises questions about forms and tools. The second is to explain how a remote intercultural seminar was conceived and implemented to create virtual fieldwork. The third is to present the methodology on which this experimentation is based and to explore the opportunities and limitations of VFTs. The last is to present and discuss the results.
ABSTRACT
Recent literature has demonstrated the importance of fieldwork in geology. However, as the pandemic of COVID 19 emerged since 2019, several issues have arisen to develop fieldwork experiences in several educational centers around the world, at the same time resources have become scarce, and field experiences are often targeted for cuts. In courses throughout, field trips and other excursions were postponed, making it so students do not have the opportunity to participate in geology field trips. In response, we have developed a virtual field experience (VFEs) from one of our nearby outcrops, Kinta Valley limestone to create a virtual reality (VR) model and 3D rock model based on available rock samples in our Laboratory at Universiti Teknologi Petronas. © 2021, Petroleum and Coal. All rights reserved.