Integrating Mobile Mixed Reality to Enhance Learning Before, During, and After Physical Field Trips

Physical field trips have long been used in education, but virtual field trips are increasingly being used to enhance them. This article focuses on the use of mixed reality to enhance a physical field trip before, during, and after the field experience as part of a project in teacher professional development. The context is a field trip to a landfill site, where students learn about waste management, recycling, and sustainability. Building on several different themes from the literature to create a single model of pre-, intra-, and post-field trip digital learning activities, three scenarios are outlined: One where a virtual field trip is used prior to a physical field trip to prepare students for their visit, a second where an augmented reality experience is used during the physical field trip, and a third where students build on their experience of virtual reality to create their own virtual tours. The article highlights how mobile mixed reality offers new ways to deepen the field trip learning experience through student- and teacher-created digital artifacts.