Virtual Savannah: In Situ Test of a Virtual Learning 3D Visualization for children

Virtual Savannah is constructed to visualize parts of a curriculum, which the educational service at Aalborg Zoo has difficulties in teaching children visiting the zoo. It contains rich media like audio, text, video and picture galleries about African ecology, but some of this episodic information has been visualized to a further extent in order to transfer it as semantic knowledge for the children to assimilate. Three in situ tests reflected through a set of assignments which prior knowledge the children had on the subject, if they could assimilate information from the system, and finally the children’s retention one week after the test, measuring if any learning had happened. The tests showed significant results by comparing prior knowledge with assimilated knowledge. It also showed significant results by comparing prior knowledge and knowledge retained one week after the test, which indicate that the children were not only able to use the system as intended, but they also learned from it.