Using Virtual Reality to Support Hazards and Risk Education

Teaching hazards and risk often requires engagement with complex, dynamic and inaccessible environments. Virtual reality (VR) provides a practical means of supporting immersive, place-based learning. This contribution presents the use of VR as a facilitated teaching tool within hazards and risk education.

VR sessions were delivered to master's and undergraduate students (one session of 12 students), 2nd year undergraduate students (two sessions of 13 students) and to pre-university Sixth Form students (two sessions of 12 students) using Meta Quest 3 and Quest Pro headsets and the Wander platform of global Google Street (and user uploaded) images. The sessions included virtual visits to hazard-relevant locations, including informal settlements in Kenya, earthquake-affected urban environments in Japan (using before-and-after imagery to examine building tilt), rockfall-prone landscapes in Nepal, time-lapse environmental change in Durham, a broader VR-based field trip to Israel and another session following along the coastline of a Kayaker in Oman. Each activity combined guided VR exploration with structured discussion of hazard processes, exposure, vulnerability and resilience.

The use of VR supported spatial understanding, comparison between contrasting hazard contexts, and student engagement. Key considerations included group size, facilitation, accessibility, and the importance of integrating VR with non-digital teaching methods rather than using VR in isolation. These examples demonstrate how immersive technologies can be effectively incorporated into hazards and risk education across educational levels, while highlighting the need for critical reflection on learning outcomes and evaluation.