Introduction and story behind the emergence of this learning activity. What was the need, what issue/problem was the teacher facing and wanted to resolve? 

Normally a (live) excursion to the Grebbeberg is part of the course. During this excursion, students explore this environment where two ecosystems/flora districts collide. We normally set out plots and look at plants and look at the relationships between the plants and their habitat. The students work in groups and in the end, give a short presentation about their findings within their own group. 

This year we couldn’t go on an excursion so we made a virtual excursion using H5P to make sure the learning outcomes linked to the excursion were met. 

• H5P
• 360 degrees camera - borrowed from the WUR

What has been learned after this lesson/activity has been executed ?

With the online excursion students could practice and test the knowledge about plants they gained during the previous days.  

Specific description and demonstration of the lesson idea/learning activity.

With all the pictures we build an online excursion in H5P (interactive picture). Students could explore the environment by looking at the 360 degrees pictures and clicking on the icons within the picture. By doing so they get access to another picture. In this case, the picture zoomed in on a certain part of the environment that is visible on the start picture. Within that zoom-in picture, a student could either click on icons for more detailed pictures or navigate back to the starting/main picture. On the more detailed pictures, self-test questions are added. With these questions, the students can check the previously acquired knowledge about a certain plant. 

Figure 1: Screenshots from the H5P

Mentions tips lecturer has for colleagues based on their experience.

It takes a lot of time to make this online excursion (3 weeks fulltime) so start in time. 

On the other hand, be aware that due to this preparation time most plants were not flowering as they were on the actual date of the (live) excursion. Ideally, you want pictures of that state of the plants on that day. 

If we would have had more time we would have added more overarching questions to help students get a better understanding of relationships etc. 

• Help on online education: What's Up, What's New Brightspace page
• Presentation of the online excursion using H5P: (video below)

• Demo of the online excursion using H5P: (video below)