Forest and Wood Products Australia’s education program ForestLearning has been recognised for its outstanding contribution to geography education, collecting two wins and one high commendation from the Australian Geography Teacher’s Association (AGTA) at its Annual Awards in Hobart last night.
The AGTA awards reward quality geography teaching tools aimed at Australian teachers and students. The award-winning ForestLearning resources include world-first multimedia experiences that use virtual reality to give students an immersive experience of Australian forests and wood processing facilities and introduce concepts of sustainable forestry practice, as well as an accompanying suite of Year 10 geography resources to further deepen students’ learning.
In partnership with SheMaps, ForestLearning was also awarded for the ‘Drones in Forestry’ resource, which teach students the different ways foresters use high tech digital systems, like drones, in their everyday work.
In conferring the awards AGTA judges commended the high quality of the ForestVR resources and pointed to the “technology-rich product design” which presents a “highly accessible and engaging resource for students”.
“Our curriculum-linked resources make it easy for teachers to engage students in topics such as sustainability and the environment. Importantly they address the gap of Australian-specific teaching resources about forests and wood products,” said ForestLearning National Education Program Manager Beth Welden.
“Using the power of virtual reality, the ForestVR™ 360-degree videos and photo tours make otherwise remote areas of Australia accessible online for educators and their students.
“Similarly, the ‘Drones in Forestry’ story map draws from a wide range of multimedia materials to create an interactive experience for students,” Ms Welden said.
Teachers and students responded enthusiactically to the ForestVR resourceswith 5687 views across YouTube and Vimeo and 2,631 visits to ForestVR website pages.
A survey of teachers who used the ForestVR resources showed that 90% of teachers believe it is important to teach students about forestry and wood products, and 60% found it easy to engage students with these resources.
“I’m proud of this huge achievement, which reflects not just the work of ForestLearning but the partners that collaborated with us to produce these award-winning resources,” Ms Welden said.
“We congratulate our Drones in Forestry partner, She Maps, on this win, as well as all the other winners, particularly our collaborators and other partners, and thank AGTA and the judges for their investment of expertise and time in conducting and evaluating these awards,” said Ms Welden.
ForestVR and accompanying Year 10 geography resources were developed by ForestLearning, an initiative of Forest and Wood Products Australia (FWPA), in collaboration with Geography Teachers Association Victoria, the Design and Technology Teachers Association Victoria, successful early teacher adopters of VR in classrooms, leading universities, the Australian Forest Education Alliance and industry partners.
The ForestVR, ‘Year 10 Environmental Change and Forest Management toolkit’ and ‘Drones in Forestry’ resources are available to view and download for free on the ForestLearning website:
Links to resources
- Year 10 Environmental Change and Forest Management teaching and learning toolkit is available to download here: ForestVR – Geography Year 10: Environmental Change and Forest Management (forestlearning.edu.au)
- ForestVR virtual tours and 360-degree video experiences: https://forestlearning.edu.au/forestvr.html
- Drones in Forestry Years 5-6: https://forestlearning.edu.au/find-a-resource/article/105/drones-in-forestry-years-5-6.html
- Drones in Forestry Years 9-10: https://forestlearning.edu.au/find-a-resource/article/106/drones-in-forestry-years-9-10.html
About ForestLearning
Forestlearning serves school teachers and educators, children, and the public with information on Australian forests and forest-based products, and provision and access to forestry teaching resources. It is built and maintained by forest educators and forest communication specialist from across Australia known as the Australian Forest Education Alliance (AFEA) and is further supported by links to key government, industry organisations and educational service providers.
Further information and resources as well as a list of partner organisations across Australia are available on its website: forestlearning.edu.au
