Serious games for geographical field skills: an exploration

Stuart Ashfield, Claire Jarvis, Joerg Kaduk Department of Geography

University of Leicester Leicester

chj2@le.ac.uk

Abstract— This paper explores the synergies between geography, GIScience and serious gaming. From a skills-based rather than issues-based direction, the work highlights opportunities for using games engines for the development of fieldwork preparation tools. Our emphasis lies with exploring the contention that games can foster associative learning. Specifically, we evaluate the role that presence may play in realizing this goal.

Keywords- Geography; field skills; learning; presence

I. INTRODUCTION This paper introduces work currently under development

within the Geography department at the University of Leicester that relates to the field of serious games. In our case, the connections between subjects overlap on many fronts. Firstly, the topics of this conference share many themes with contemporary research in our sub-discipline of Geography – that of Geographic Information Science (GIScience). Interactivity issues, virtual environments (VEs), augmented reality, visualization techniques, human-computer interaction, mobile games, education and learning, and virtual worlds are all research topics of some currency within GIScience. Secondly, both videogames and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are commonly tasked with solving spatial problems [1]. There are links between game playing and successful spatial thinking, the latter being a key trait in geographic practice [2], and interests in the geography of game spaces. Thirdly, we have been using virtual reality environments to achieve a variety of geographic learning goals for some while; we are interested in broadening these developments to incorporate more explicitly collaborative tasks between individuals. Taking these points together, when we also consider recent research related to learning with games [3] it seems likely that serious games should be particularly suitable for use in a geographical application/learning context.

Opportunities for the use of serious gaming in geography are broad. There is a growing interest, for example, in their use for issues-based explorations, for example in relation to the evaluation of climate change strategies as seen in Operation Climate Control developed by Red Redemption. This paper focuses particularly on the use of games for skills training, in a Higher Education context, linking more closely with literature applying

serious games technologies to other focused training developments in triage training for example [4]. We look particularly at the potential for serious games to be used in preparing students for work in the field; fieldwork forms a core-component of the Geography curriculum.

II. GAMES ENGINES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS FOR GEOGRAPHIC VISUALISATION & LEARNING

Spatial literacy is a particularly topical theme within geography. Given that games are already being linked to performance at spatial tasks, it seems likely that educational serious games with a spatial emphasis are set to increase. Data visualization and geographical analysis software is increasingly being used to display data in 3D virtual worlds [5]. Coming from the other direction, increasing interaction with GIS now takes place through 3D representations and this is closely related to developments in computing, software and the internet. Providing “Greater flexibility, sophistication, and interaction in visualising the world than the paper maps of the past” [6] such representations offer many possibilities for engaging with geographic information. Games engines have been used for research for a surprisingly long time and they now offer the most realistic environments that can be created without spending a large amount of money [7]. As Corbett & Wade [8] point out, “The modifiability of the virtual environment and game code components and the robustness of the rendering engines and networking code all contribute to the potential of game engines as an interactive and/or immersive 3D cartographic visualization tool.” Alongside serious games, entertaining GIS (of sorts) such as Defcon and games companies recruiting GI specialists hint at the strong ties already mentioned.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL) are three dimensional immersive environments that offer a unique setting for social interaction. They have received much attention as a teaching and learning space, for example with regard to health education [9]. The collaborative aspect of internet based worlds such as these offers much potential for geographic enquiry; however, whilst they may be fit to some extent for our purpose, access restrictions within the department, the relatively low graphical fidelity, and having to purchase land for development makes them unappealing for a first venture into serious game development.

2010 Second International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications

978-0-7695-3986-7/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/VS-GAMES.2010.18

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III. SERIOUS GAMES FOR FIELDWORK TRAINING Field trips are an important component of geography

courses [10, 11]. In particular, the useful role that the modern day fieldcourse or dissertation can afford by involving students actively in research processes has been highlighted [12, 13]. However, while considered essential, fieldwork is both time intensive and expensive. Hence, preparation is key to successful field experimentation and learning [14]. Higgit [15] for example goes as far as to suggest that “The annual problem of trying to persuade students to undertake physical geography projects seems to centre on student perception of a skill deficiency, a concern about being able to address a research question with the appropriate technology”.

Field course preparation for geographers is often achieved in the first instance via formal training programmes to learn research techniques and methods plus more specific familiarization with a particular region or landscape. Virtual field courses involving learning environment (VLE) interfaces and combinations of panorama photographs, videos and written materials have been used to good effect in geography [16], but these are limited in the degree to which they are able to capture a sense of “being there” and “experiencing” the field practices required. This is significant in the context of a typical theoretical model of learning in which initial encounters with some methods in a lecture (or VLE) setting provide students with declarative knowledge via instructions. Only later do students move from the slow and deliberate following of instructions towards a more associative, memory and experience-based performance. In a geographical setting, fieldwork provides the usual strong context for associative skill acquisition; it is our starting contention that experiential learning within a serious games environment has the potential to build early degrees of associative learning before a field visit. Fieldwork in geography is about “reading” the environment and reacting to it and questioning it astutely. In order for students to associate geographical methods & techniques with the environment before them in the real world we therefore hypothesize that, in this disciplinary context and perhaps more so here than in others, sense of place & presence in the virtual fore-runner is important for an adequate transfer of skills to take place.

Building from experience to date developing field preparation tools for use within a widescreen virtual reality theatre, and drawing on the pedagogic literature and reflections form field teaching in general, we therefore propose a number of serious games that may aid with fieldwork preparation and learning in Geography.

1. Getting students used to the environment they will be

encountering, helping them orient themselves (large scale space);

2. Making sure that students have a knowledge of the basic functioning of equipment – what to take (e.g. spare batteries), how the simple things work (e.g. why might a PDA keep turning itself off?) and the right order in

which to do certain tasks (e.g. check com ports before connecting GPS) so that time in the field is well spent;

3. Making sure that students have a knowledge of the basic techniques and procedures – how to carry out a random vegetation sample, training students not to move both level and staff at the same time when levelling, for example;

4. Developing teamwork skills. Students often fail to multi-task, or to recognize and work to their own strengths within a particular team setting.

From these contexts for developing short, focused serious games for fieldwork training, a number of more general research goals arise:

• To examine the usefulness of serious games for the training of fieldwork skills for undergraduate fieldwork;

• To evaluate the potential of different VEs as suitable for constructing games for a number of specific elements of fieldwork training (playing to strengths of each);

• To collect data and observe whether serious game fieldwork training improves student orientation once in an environment and whether time spent teaching how to use equipment in the field can be reduced (more time for actual fieldwork).

IV. RESEARCH IN PROGRESS We now introduce a game currently in development that offers students the chance to learn skills relevant to fieldwork equipment and procedures in a collaborative VE. In this case, our focus is on the practice of leveling to measure elevation change across the landscape, a task requiring equipment manipulation and considered teamwork.

Figure 1. Forest

A. Games environment This game is being developed with the CryEngine,

created by software developers Crytek. Like many modern engines it has a modular structure and can be reused [7]. The engine supports a number of features that are useful for creating immersive and realistic games and VEs, such as a real time editor, a network system, an integrated physics

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system and a dynamic music system. This particular engine was chosen for its powerful sandbox 2 (real time) editor and its strength in representing vegetated landscapes to a particularly high standard. The SDK and c++ source code are available and the editor contains numerous tools similar to those found within 3D modeling software commonly used for constructing 3D geographic visualizations. The sandbox 2 editor is also free to download which initially made it an attractive choice for testing ideas. Additional modeling for the game is necessary for leveling equipment. This is being done with XSI-mod tool software which, for non commercial purposes, is also free.

B. Building the geographical environment The geographical environment built as part of this game

includes features of landscapes that our students will visit as part of their field studies. It includes an area of forest used for sampling, soil and carbon estimation exercises and areas of flatter land more typically used for the training of height leveling and biodiversity measurement. The mixtures of terrain offer opportunities to scaffold learning across simpler then more challenging terrain, in geographical learning terms, through considered use of game levels in work to follow.

The environment (Fig. 1) was created by importing a terrain texture that was itself created by stitching together a number of aerial images for the Haldane Forest area of Devon. This terrain texture was 2048m2 and this was loaded into the sandbox 2 editor on a map of 20482 pixels allowing for a 1 to 1 ratio. This aerial image was used for reference when detailing the map, alongside geo-referenced photos taken by students during fieldwork, and images uploaded to Flickr linked to Google Earth. The terrain was constructed from an accurate DEM in a GIS system, brought into the game using the heightmap. Various textures and vegetation types are available within the game; however, for geographical training, specific tree types (in this case pine and spruce) need to be converted from other software in order to achieve realistic subject learning. Like many engines the Cryengine supports a Cartesian X,Y,Z co-ordinate system, and referencing the known geographical locations of players and the environmental features at those points is key within this application. One of the main tasks is to develop the ability to record where students are looking and the subsequent recording of positions, distances and angles. We acknowledge that such software is not built with such questions in mind, but such items are integral to the game genre (where to move, shoot) and therefore translation between uses becomes ‘do-able’.

C. Game design methodology – goals and structure Initially our thoughts are concerned with developing

students’ skills, thought processes and understanding of issues to do with leveling. We therefore are in the process of developing a game where students working in small groups, much as they would in the real world, to follow the same fundamental steps of the task digitally that they would do in the field. The first aspect of this game will see students selecting the right type of level, and the correct associated

equipment from a selection in front of them. This is aimed at allowing the students to discuss which equipment is suitable for the task in hand.

Following on from this it is envisaged that teams of students will work out relative changes in height as they traverse the ground with their equipment using leveling techniques. For example, with students working in groups of 3, we might see one student placing a staff down a hillside whilst another looks through the sight to assess the staff reading and a third notes the reading in a notebook or on a PDA. Elevations for specific game locations will be obtained through the reading of a GIS raster grid behind the schemes using custom code.

The software is capable of supporting a maximum of 32 players, which would offer the chance for numerous groups to work in the same space, with members of staff observing from pre-defined camera angles or wandering through the environment.

D. Associated concepts of presence and place Of particular relevance to our growing interest regarding

serious games within (higher) geographical education are concepts of place and presence. As an aside then, we are keen to examine the importance of presence. By this, we mean the degree to which the users feel part of the experience when using games for skills learning in a geographical context. It is our contention that in order to achieve associative learning in the discipline of geography, in which concepts of place and space are absolutely key, sensing a certain degree of presence & spirit of place in the games trainer will be necessary for successful and experiential skills training.

More formally, presence here is defined as the subjective experience of being in one place or environment, even when one is physically situated in another [17]. Research into this sense of presence is still a relatively recent concept and there are many questions unanswered regarding how it is constructed and the best way to measure it [18]. In particular, little research from a geographical perspective has been conducted into presence; research is more often undertaken specifically by VR researchers [19]. Additionally, little work on presence has been conducted using desktop environments, perhaps because they have not historically been regarded as particularly immersive experiences.

Presence is often discussed in connection with place, since these two themes are closely intertwined. We also note here that “There is a shortage of research integrating theory and practice on how best to augment or involve the context specific user-experience of place through interactive digital media” [20]. In geographical learning, place is clearly also important; our focus here is to ensure that the environments we create have geographical authenticity and a sense, if not spirit, of place [21].

Semi immersive desktop environments are currently the most common form of interaction with VEs. We hope that serious games such as the one currently in development will allow for further work regarding virtual place since this is currently an understudied area of geography but also one of

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contemporary interest. We also extend this interest to the wider serious games community. Information gleaned on how participants regard the environments that you are creating will be of interest to geographers as real and virtual geographies continue to develop.

V. CONCLUSIONS In summary there is huge potential for serious games within geography. Specifically GIScience and serious games share many common research interests. This paper focuses on the development of fieldwork preparation tools, with an emphasis on exploring the contention that games can foster associative learning. Specifically, we evaluate the role that presence and place may play in realizing this goal in contexts where being able to ‘read’ geographical context is key to subject learning.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The work reported here was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England & Wales (HEFCE) as part of the Spatial Literacy in Teaching & Learning (SPLINT) Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning initiative.

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