Soil Science: Designing an XR learning experience that simulates real-world soil science fieldwork.

@DELTA

Role

Junior UI Designer

Industry

EdTech

Duration

2 months

⚠️ The Problem

Soils are complex, and students need to be able to observe and engage with soils in their environmental setting to attain a full understanding of how they developed. However, the ability to bring students to outdoor sites is limited by large class size and other logistical constraints, which impacts students’ ability to comprehend how environmental factors affect soil characteristics. Can an immersive virtual field experience successfully simulate in-person field visits and enhance student learning outcomes?

🗓️ Project Roadmap

✍️ My Notes

Students use a VR headset (Meta Quest 3S) to watch 360° videos from the professors that introduces them to the soil pit and the lab itself.

Students would interact with a life-sized 3D scan of the soil pit wall, using controllers to virtually place markers where they think soil horizon boundaries are and get depth readouts from each marker.

In the next activity, the students are shown where the horizon boundaries are and get soil analysis information to help them identify what type of horizons are present.

Large area 3D drone scan of the land around and including the soil pit for students to note topology, vegetation, and other large scale factors that affect the soil horizons.