Virtual Ecosystemtours
VR-ecosystem worlds
In the project, regions of Germany shall be included for the VR tours. At each location, one biodiversity-rich (d) and one biodiversity-poor (nd) habitat will be studied.
The VR tours are created with VR Suite, built from 360° images and supplemented by maps, photos and sound files. By linking the images, the participants can move from one location to the next and work interactively in them.
The participants of the module are supposed to determine the heterogeneity of the habitats (climate parameters, soil properties, water bodies, habitat maps) and the species diversity (vascular plant mapping, bird species mapping) using the VR environments and the e-book. Finally, they are supposed to describe the habitats and the entire ecosystem using the Shannon-Weaver Index.
Waldökosystem BAYERN ❘ divers: Naturwaldreservat ❘ nicht divers: Bayerischer Staatsforst
Stadtökosystem BERLIN ❘ divers: städtische Brachflächen ❘ nicht divers: Wohngenossenschaftssiedlung im alten Ost-Berlin
Agrarökosystem MAGDEBURGER BÖRDE ❘ divers: Naturnaher landwirtschaftlicher Betrieb ❘ nicht divers: Konventioneller landwirtschaftlicher Betrieb
In May and July 2022, photographs will be taken of Tempelhofer Feld and Park am Nordbahnhof in Berlin to create a virtual tour of them and enable an analysis of the vegetation and bird calls at two time points in the year.
VR-tour at the Eskesberg
VR-tour at the University of Wuppertal
E-Book on vegetation analysis
The likelihood of developing symptoms of cyber sickness such as nausea, concentration difficulties, headaches and dizziness increase with the length of time VR headsets are used (Elwardy et al., 2020; Singla et al., 2019). It is assumed that the reason for this is the lack of correspondence between the physical self-perception and the perception of the visual cortex. The organ of equilibrium interprets the discrepancy as a disturbance and produces a physical defensive posture (Lawson, 2014).
To reduce the time using the VR headsets, an e-book was created to accompany the VR tour, which can be used to analyse the biodiversity of the location.
The e-book for the exemplary Tour at the Eskesberg is divided into instructions for vegetation analysis and subsequent ways of identifying selected plants. Participants are supposed to identify the vascular plants on their own and can check their results with a quiz at the end. The e-book was created with the software Book Creator and the quiz with LearningApps.org.
