Lilliput pupils learn through virtual reality

Bournemouth-based Dorset Creative is interested in the educational possibilities of VR.

It had previously held a VR event at Lilliput Infant School and decided to develop a game for the school’s summer event.

Rowena Revill, co-founder of the company, said: “VR in education is on the rise and we wanted to give the children an introduction to the technology, so we asked the teachers, who said we could have a go at their Christmas fair to do something fun.”

She said children had loved the Santa Claus ride the company had taken to the school on its first visit.

“They asked us to come back for their next fair in July. We thought we would do something that put more emphasis on what’s going on around them,” she said.

The company developed a game for use with the Oculus Go headset, to explore the idea of cause and effect in the environment. “The game centres around users helping honeybees to pollinate flowers, whilst at the core, needing to strike a crucial balance between the happiness of civilisation and man’s technology advancements, the natural environment and agriculture,” she said.

The aim was to use the immersive game to help teach the four to seven-year-olds the idea of ecosystems.

“The world faces a huge environmental sustainability challenge of the moment. One of the biggest observations by green charities and campaigners is that people don’t generally go out of their way to harm the environment that we are living in – but that people are not educated enough about the issue and don’t know what small input they can contribute to help, or the impact of their behaviour – environmentally friendly or unfriendly.”

Her husband and co-founder Nathan Revill pointed to research suggesting that learners retained 90 per cent of what they learned from VR experiences, compared with 78 per cent from desktop computer learning. “It’s really making a big difference in the world of education,” he said.