News & Events

ForestLearning’s much anticipated virtual reality tool kit – ForestVR^TM Learn through immersion – is already giving students a first hand look at the forestry industry! ForestVR^TM has been officially launched at a number of leading Australian teacher and industry conferences, including the Australian Geography Teachers Conference in October, and teachers have been quick to get on board.

The ForestVR^TM tooklit for schools includes free to access or download virtual experiences, filmed at 28 different locations around Australia. Using a virtual reality headset, an ipad, PC, smart phone or smartboard, students can virtually visit a production forest or timber mill, with apps for IOS, Android and Oculus being launched early 2020 in time for the new school year.

The 360 degree environment means students can be immersed in what’s happening throughout the seed to shelter cycle for both pine (softwood) and spotted gum (hardwood) production forests:

• planting seeds into growing trays in the nursery,
• planting seedlings into prepared coupes,
• measuring trees with a forester to monitor tree growth for forest inventory surveys,
• thinning operations to allow for greater tree growth
• high pruning appearance grade hardwood trees using a cherry picker,
• get a birds eye view of harvesting process and the technology involved from inside the harvester cab
• follow logs and timber being sawn through the timber milling processing cycle
• see beautiful wood products in use in everyday life.

Students also get to see forest growth changes over time with features like a 30-year time lapse showing trees growing from seedlings into 35 metre tall trees – a “watch it grow” activity for primary students.

ForestVR^TM, being a set of virtual experiences and 360 tours, allows students to more actively view the content by moving their head or iPad to see more around their virtual world – as if they were there. Teachers at the launch were able to try the technology for themselves using ForestLearning’s own VR Headsets, and said they could see how the experiences would appeal to their students. “When they’re plugged into the headsets they’re completely engaged,” said one teacher from Melbourne.   “There’s 100% focus on what they’re looking at. I think that’s a huge thing to be able to be completely immersed in what they’re supposed to be looking at without any peripheral distractions.”

ForestVR^TM has been developed in collaboration between leading teacher association organisations, the Geography Teachers Association Victoria (GTAV) and the Design and Technologies Teachers Association Victoria (DATTA Vic) and forest and wood product professionals throughout Australia and the entire supply chain.  Australian curriculum align teaching and learning resources are in the final stages of development, for

• 5/6 cross curriculum Geography/Design and Technologies,
• 7/8 Design and Technologies, and
• 8 and 10 Geography.

These teaching resources embed ForestVR^TM experienecs and tours into lesson plans and activities, all aligned to Australian curriculum outcomes.  Once completed, these resources will be freely available to all Australian teachers to download and use via www.forestlearning.edu.au, along with all existing ForestLearning curriculum resources.

A teacher at the launch from Melbourne said he could see the potential for using this technology in a range of subject areas. “I think one of the things it really does is it gets that curiosity going,” he said. “Rather than just being told information to learn, I can set out a task that they then have to investigate further and it’s really nicely linked through this technology.” ForestVR^TM has been developed to be a flexible learning tool, allowing teachers to use the tools for a range of purposes such as an introductory activity for students starting a new unit to allow students to engage with the content, or for example, would be well placed to use as a learning tool before, and/or after an excursion to a forest. Classes can use it to explore all stages of the forestry cycle (including any they didn’t get to see on a single day’s field visit), or to help students appreciate more fully other special events like National Tree Day (forest industries replanted and planted over 70 million tree seedlings in 2019 alone!), or Outdoor Classroom Day.

The VR experiences and 360 virtual tours outline how forests are managed, and why they are classified as a renewable resource.  With sustainability as a cross-curricular priority area, many teachers were keen to link the resource into a range of subject areas “I really am inspired about climate change and sustainability and that’s why I initially tested the ForestVR headsets,” she said. “We will be able to inspire students in relation to the benefits of growing renewable forests, and to see the whole cycle from seed to shelter. I’d like to show them how harvested forests are being replanted in order to provide us with the renewable building materials we all see around us, while at the same time storing carbon in wood.”

The second phase of ForestVR is currently in development and will focus on forest and wood product themes including

• unique forests of Australia and biomes,
• forest and wood product careers, and
• agroforestry – trees at work on the farm.

This phase has Federal Government funding and will be released mid 2020.  If you would like to trial the new to launch resources, or give input input into Phase 2 we’d love to hear from you! Email info@forestlearning.edu.au

ForestVR is available now at www.forestlearning.edu.au.