Teaching Soils with an Augmented Reality Sandbox

Abstract

Students using the Augmented Reality Sandbox. Photo by K. Vaughan. In laboratory classes, students participate in hands-on learning, observing chemical reactions and dissecting specimens to learn anatomy. However, it can be challenging to teach landscape-scale processes in the lab, even if students have an opportunity for field trips. One option is to shrink the landscape and bring it into the lab, and this is where the Augmented Reality (AR) Sandbox comes in handy. The AR Sandbox is a way to create landscapes and observe water flow. The technology can be found in museums, on college campuses, and some are even designed to travel—readers may have seen the one at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix last year. The setup requires a projector, a 3D camera (e.g. Xbox Kinect), a computer, and a box to hold the sand. The 3D camera senses the distance to the surface, and users can create a landscape of mountains, valleys, and water features. The projector displays topographic lines and water and simulates rainfall (across the entire board or localized). The system adjusts in real time as users make changes to the landscape. For example, if you create a reservoir of water behind a dam, you can put a break in the dam and observe the resulting flood. The plans and software were developed by researchers at the University of California–Davis and are open source, so anyone can build an AR Sandbox for teaching and outreach purposes (see https://arsandbox.ucdavis.edu). Karen Vaughan, Assistant Professor of Soil Pedology at the University of Wyoming, is a big fan of the technology. She teaches an introductory soils lab course and built an AR Sandbox for use in the class. “[An AR sandbox] should be in every geoscience and soil science lab across the country,” she says. Vaughan and several colleagues recently published a paper in Natural Sciences Education (http://bit.ly/2yIxFE5) describing the use of an AR Sandbox in the lab as well as student feedback about using the tool. For this study, groups of two to four students were given about 30 minutes to complete an activity. Students were instructed to re-create a local landscape and predict where five soil orders would form. While it is necessary to provide guidance in lab activities for evaluation and discussion purposes, Vaughan says students quickly start to form landscapes without instruction. “They were creating wetland pools and mesa top plateaus just to see what would happen when they put water on the system.” Using the sandbox, students could test their knowledge about water flow by observing rainfall on the landscape and use the information to identify where certain soils were likely to form. After completing the exercise, students filled out a qualitative survey. Of the 45 students who participated, 96% said that using the AR sandbox improved their understanding of where soils form on the landscape, and 75% said the exercise improved their understanding of water flow. When reviewing the open-ended response of students, researchers identified some common themes including visual learning and topography. Students indicated that being able to see water flowing over the landscape and how slope and elevation influence flow was important for learning. Also, that being able to alter the landscape and see a change in flow helped them to determine where different soils would form. Because of the positive feedback about the AR Sandbox helping students to achieve learning goals, Vaughan tries to incorporate the sandbox into lab activities through the semester. “They read the book. They sit through lecture and see PowerPoint slides or drawings on the boards,” Vaughan says. But with the AR Sandbox, “you're literally putting your hands in the sand,” she says. This active learning experience may strengthen students’ ability to understand and recall concepts. This experiment demonstrates one way to use the AR Sandbox to teach landscape processes in the classroom, but the tool has the potential for more. Because the code is open access, it can be altered, and already people have created code for lava flows and snow in place of the rain function. Other potential adaptations would be simulating wildfire or incorporating different climate scenarios. There may also be potential to project a topographic map on the surface, so users could accurately form an existing landscape to work with. The visual and interactive nature of the tool may also provide a format for scientists, land managers, and policymakers to run simulations and discuss environmental patterns and impacts in an engaging way. Read the full study in Natural Sciences Education: http://bit.ly/2yIxFE5. Check out a YouTube video on the sandbox here: https://youtu.be/22e7_zAgGFM.