In collaboration with Rhondda Heritage Services and GEM Cymru (Group for Education in Museums), Vision Fountain is embarking on a small-scale intervention to explore innovative approaches for museums to engage with schools. Our objective is to develop novel working methods aligned with the New Curriculum for Wales.
As part of this initiative, we plan to bring a collection of Welsh fossils into the classroom to observe how students, aged 10 and above, engage with the learning experience. Rather than presenting the physical fossils directly (some of which are rare or large and heavy), we will immerse the students in a virtual reality experience that we have designed and built.
Our goal is to assess the effectiveness of fully immersive teaching, utilizing a heritage collection, in comparison to traditional heritage teaching methods. We will conduct a control lesson where a similar curriculum is presented, but with traditional teaching replacing the virtual reality component.
(the project is funded by GEM Wales /Welsh Government)