EOS2.2

The master’s degree programmes Earth Structure and Dynamics and Earth Life and Climate at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, include the option to join a research-oriented fieldwork in the Betic Cordillera, SE-Spain. The fieldwork is a 200-hour course where the students learn how to set up and develop a field project with a specific research question, and write a report on the results in a publication format. Students work in teams of two with their own research questions and working area. The focus is diverse and ranges from tectonics, basin development, structural geology or metamorphic geology, to environmental and climate related topics in terms of sedimentology, stratigraphy, paleontology and biogeology.

Covid-19 restrictions have prevented conducting this fieldwork in the last two years. To avoid study delays, the field course has been converted into a virtual fieldwork that that took place in the same academic time slot as the usual field study. This conversion has also allowed the creation of new working methods and virtual resources to benefit in the future.

The virtual fieldwork was focussed in the same subareas as the real fieldwork; in the Sierra de los Filabres metamorphic range (structures and deformation history, petrology and metamorphic history) and the adjacent Sorbas basin (kinematic and depositional evolution). We compiled data sets with measurements of bedding and sediment transport directions, foliations, fold axes, (stretching) lineations and shear senses along shear zones, and faults in both areas. We also collected field photographs, including panoramas of key outcrops. For the metamorphic range, full-scanned thin-sections were available by using the ZEISS ZEN lite as a Digital Microscope for Thin Section Analysis. Detailed sedimentological columns were also available in the Sorbas Basin, as well as geo-referenced geological and topographic maps for all areas.

The students studied and worked with the fully geo-referenced material by making use of Google Earth or their converted equivalent in shape files. They analysed the outcrops in the same way as they would do in the field, had to decide on what exact data to use and how to combine observations to answer their research questions, in combination with existing relevant literature.

In our presentation, we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of our virtual field work. The combination of prefab data sets and extensive use of literature resulted in more in-depth insight in the evolution of the studied area than has been reached in the past in a normal fieldwork. In contrast, the students learned less on how to filter the right observations form the overload of data available in the field, and they got less experience in dealing with uncertainties. And, not unimportantly, they had less fun. We believe that an optimal combination of preparing student fieldwork with virtual datasets and onsite fieldwork is the future way to advance fieldwork learning.

How to cite: de Bresser, H. and Matenco, L.: Virtual fieldwork in the Betic Cordillera, SE-Spain, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-6148, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-6148, 2022.

Field-based classes in geological sciences are crucial components of geoscience education and research. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, such activities became problematic due to limitations such as travel restrictions and lockdown periods: this motivated the geoeducational community to tailor new ways to engage people in field activities. As a result, we adopted Immersive Virtual Reality as a tool to involve students, academics, and the lay public in field exploration, thus making geological exploration accessible also to people affected by permanent or temporary motor disabilities. In particular, we evaluated how users perceive the usefulness of this approach as applied to Earth Science learning and teaching, through nine outreach events, where a total of 459 participants were involved, with different ages and cultural backgrounds. The participants explored, in an immersive mode, four geological landscapes, defined as virtual geological environments, which have been reconstructed by cutting-edge, unmanned aerial system-based photogrammetry techniques. They include: Santorini (Greece), the North Volcanic Zone (Iceland), and Mt. Etna (Italy). After the exploration, each participant filled in an anonymous questionnaire. The results show that the majority would be willing to repeat the experience, and, most importantly, the majority of the students and Earth Science academics who took part in the navigation confirmed the usefulness of this technique for geo-education purposes. Our approach can be considered as a groundbreaking tool and an innovative democratic way to access information and experiences, as well as to promote inclusivity and accessibility in geo-education, while reducing travel costs, saving time, and decreasing the carbon footprint. This work has been carried out in the framework of the following projects: i) ACPR15T4_ 00098 “Agreement between the University of Milan Bicocca and the Cometa Consortium for the experimentation of cutting-edge interactive technologies for the improvement of science teaching and dissemination” of Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (ARGO3D - https://argo3d.unimib.it/); ii) Erasmus+ Key Action 2 2017-1-UK01-KA203- 036719 “3DTeLC – Bringing the 3D-world into the classroom: a new approach to Teaching, Learning and Communicating the science of geohazards in terrestrial and marine environments” (http://3dtelc.lmv.uca.fr/; https://www.3dtelc.com/); iii) 2018 EGU Public Engagement Grants (https://www.egu.eu/outreach/peg/).

How to cite: Bonali, F. L., Russo, E., Vitello, F., Antoniou, V., Tibaldi, A., Fallati, L., Bracchi, V., Savini, A., Whitworth, M., Drymoni, K., Pasquaré Mariotto, F., Nomikou, P., Sciacca, ‬., Bressan, S., Falsaperla, S., Reitano, D., van Wyk de Vries, B., Panieri, G., Stiller-Reeve, M. A., and Becciani, U. and the others: Immersive Virtual Reality for Geo-education: feedback from students, academics and the lay public, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11553, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11553, 2022.

This paper deals with the creation of a virtual excursion in the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge between Rüdesheim and Lorch. The virtual excursion serves as a supplementary teaching method for students of geosciences. The challenges posed by the Corona pandemic also require a rethinking of how excursions are conducted. These are highly relevant in the field of geosciences, as the study programme is very practice-oriented and thus the theoretical basics can be applied practically. Furthermore, excursions involve not only spatial but also physical challenges. With the help of the digital excursion, the students have the opportunity to explore the area on their own, without the presence of the supervising lecturer, and to evaluate the information provided about the rock. In addition to an overview of the location and size of the rock, detailed representations of the structure of the rock are also available. In order to be able to present this depth of information in digital form, Google-KMZ files (https://seafile.rlp.net/d/f2e4fc83a52b4a749f2d/) and 3D models of the area to be explored were created using a digital camera, a GPS device and photogrammetry software. 

Even though the digital excursion offers a wealth of data about the rock to be explored, they are not intended to replace classical excursions, but rather to complement them. In addition, they offer meaningful support for the teaching of geosciences.

How to cite: Owin, J.: Virtual excursion in the "Rheinisches Schiefergebirge" between Rüdesheim and Lorch, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11339, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11339, 2022.

The National Institute of Oceanography and Applied Geophysics – OGS is engaged in a wide range of educational and training activities for more than a decade, mainly focused on seismic risk mitigation through data acquisition in the field and practical stages. To by-pass the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021 OGS started a new project, deployed in fully remote mode, to involve high-school students and increase their risk awareness and preparedness. The Project, named “CEDAS: building CEnsus for seismic Damage Assessment”, consists in the collection and elaboration of data which is included in the exposure database. Knowing the type and distribution of exposed assets, in particular buildings, is thus paramount for effective mitigation of disasters. The students classified and georeferenced the main residential buildings typologies of northeastern Italy, a seismically active area which suffered consequences from strong past earthquakes. During the project, 170 high school students collected reports on more than 3200 buildings, performing a statistical analysis of their results.

The project activities consisted of two main phases: plenary virtual training meetings and individual data collection and processing. Tutors held intermediate meetings with students for verification and discussion and brainstorming sessions with their professors to discuss the efficacy of their actions. All the meetings, including those for direct training of students, were delivered in virtual mode. The training material (including the meeting recordings) was then shared remotely with students and teachers through cloud solutions, and remained available during the whole project. In this way the students were able to both collect basic data for exposure assessment, and carry out their preliminary analysis using standard statistical tools available online. The comparative data analysis, performed for selected sub-areas and for the overall dataset, allowed them for some basic interpretation and a better understanding of the exposed assets situation in sub-areas. The CEDAS project, though motivated by the need to provide a practical solution to the COVID-19-related restrictions, went well beyond the emergency situation, as it demonstrated that training activities can contribute to both enhancing the available exposure dataset and to increasing risk awareness among young students in the region.

How to cite: Barnaba, C., Peresan, A., Scaini, C., Poggi, V., and Tamaro, A.: Lessons learned from high-school students contribute to exposure database, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2744, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2744, 2022.

The Covid-19 pandemic has severely affected possibilities for students to do field work and thereby train their team work skills. Under the uncertain conditions of the pandemic, teachers might be reluctant to plan field courses months ahead, and students and teachers might not feel comfortable or are simply not allowed to travel in larger groups. This calls for approaches that allow students to do field work in small groups in their own time and to integrate individual group results into a course-wide learning goal. In this contribution, we will share our experiences with the Nitrate App developed by Deltares, which enables students to do water quality measurements with minimal prior instructions and without supervision by teachers. The Nitrate App is a smartphone application that reads nitrate concentrations from test strips and stores them in a shared database. The app has been originally developed to support farmers in measuring nitrate concentrations and derive best management practices from these. While farmers make great use of this application, the Nitrate App has been increasingly employed for educational purposes. At the same time, educational use of this app can also feed back into water management, as this allows collecting nitrate concentration data at much finer spatial resolution than possible in regional water quality monitoring networks. The directly available measurement results allow for ad hoc decisions about measurement strategies for example to identify the source of high nitrate concentrations. We will illustrate recent examples of how the Nitrate App has been employed in field work assignments of Bachelor’s and Master’s geoscience courses as well as in elementary school education.

How to cite: Lutz, S., Rozemeijer, J., Buijs, S., and Ekkelenkamp, R.: Water quality is exciting even during a pandemic: students measure and interpret nitrate concentrations using the Nitrate App, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-7640, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-7640, 2022.