Infiniscope: Enabling Educators to Create Immersive and Engaging High-Quality Virtual Environments

In January, 2023, Infiniscope, a NASA Science Activation team based out of Arizona State University (ASU), has released five virtual field trips created by classroom teachers using the Tour It* tool. These virtual field trips were created by teachers that participated in Infiniscope-hosted workshops that focused training on use of the Tour It* tool, the principles of place-based learning in Earth environments, and NASA assets for contextualization or enhancement. Their virtual field trips feature locations that are important to their communities and/or the content area in which they teach.

Infiniscope hosts these kinds of workshops for free to educators that want to expand and improve the use of digital teaching and learning tools in the classroom. Of the 41 teachers surveyed at the conclusion of the workshops, teachers gave it a rating of 9.1/10 in overall value and reported significant gains, from 3.5/10 pre-workshop to 7.5/10 post-workshop, in their comfort-level with using the tool, place-based learning principles, and completing a tour. 75% of these teachers reported they intend to use Tour It in the coming year. One teacher reported, "Learning to use TourIt has empowered me to create interactive stories that can be very engaging for my high school science students, whether the story is anchored in a known local place or a remote, inaccessible location. The many examples shared during the workshop (e.g., from our instructor; from other prior participants; and, the drafts from other participants during the showcase session) were informative and inspirational."

An evaluation and feedback process developed by the Infiniscope team led to the release of these field trips. These five tours have completed this process and are now available to Infiniscope members across the nation to experience and use in their own classrooms. Join the network for free to see these tours and other digital products like these: Infiniscope.org/join.

*Tour It is a digital tool created by Infiniscope and the Center for Education through Exploration at ASU that enables educators of all kinds to create place-based learning experiences that are immersive and culturally or environmentally responsive.

The Infiniscope project is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AD79A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about how Science Activation connects NASA science experts, real content, and experiences with community leaders to do science in ways that activate minds and promote deeper understanding of our world and beyond: https://science.nasa.gov/learners