Overview and General Recommendation:

Needle et al. describe two new and exciting virtual geology field experiences and share one of them with the larger earth science community. However, the author’s do not present any geologic or education data or results within this contribution, thus I do not feel this contribution qualifies as a Research Article per the Geoscience Communication Review Criteria. The contribution primarily serves as a report on the sites they created and how they chose to implement them in the classroom. However, it is an important resource contribution to the geoscience community and should be published.

The field trips include one real world site, the Whaleback anticline in Central Pennsylvania, recreated digitally using structure-from-motion photogrammetry and one fictional location created using Blender, an open-source 3D creation platform. Both field sites were designed in Unity, a platform that allows the user to build 2D, 3D, and VR games. The Whaleback anticline field site “video game” is publicly available for community use on a free video-game hosting platform – web links are available via the website virtualfieldgeology.com, which is run by the authors.

These are useful tools to supplement, replace, and/or enhance traditional geoscience field education. Virtual field trips (VFTs) provide improved access for students and may ultimately alleviate some barriers associated with field excursions. I suspect geoscience instructors will greatly benefit from using the two VFTs created and described by the authors. The authors leave the goals and activities associated with the VFTs open-ended to allow other instructors to make use of the field sites as they see fit. I recommend the manuscript be published with minor revision and with recognition that it is not a research article.

The contribution has two primary weaknesses. First, the authors do not present any quantitative or evaluative data from their pilot VFT implementations at the University of Washington. As such I cannot assess 1) student engagement, 2) if students acquired and accomplished the associated field skills and learning goals, or 3) how student learning gains compare to traditional field experiences. I recognize that this falls into the category of discipline-based education research with human research subjects. As such, to collect and report much of the data I request the authors would need Institutional Review Board approval. I encourage the authors to carefully consider how to assess the success of their VFTs in the future, I’d be very interested in those results!

Second, the authors do not provide sufficient workflow or technical information regarding how they built their VFTs to be useful for others to follow their approach. The manuscript would benefit from a workflow figure and detailed steps for others to create VFTs, as this seems to be the primary purpose of their contribution. At present the manuscript is simply a description of the sites they built.

The authors have provided neat tools for the community, but their contribution to GC serves only to share and describe the tools they created as opposed to presenting information and data assessing the tools or a more detailed approach to building the tools. I think both would substantially improve the utility of the contribution.  

Specific Comments:

Lines 58-59: The manuscript would benefit from additional references of geoscience education research to support several claims. References here would help.  

Line 120: Do you have user results from the July 2020 pilot study to report?

Line 139: How do you measure user experience such as “Most students found the game controls to be intuitive”?

Line 216: Do you have any user results beyond anecdotal accounts?

Line 224: Can you elaborate on high-quality work? How was this assessed?

Lines 258-264: I only caution the authors to consider that fictional environments could be abused by instructors. If a major goal of using VFTs is to accessibly acquire and practice field skills, then the VFTs should be geologically reasonable and possible.

Line 266: I look forward to this template contribution – this will be excellent for the geoscience community!

General Comments

Needle et al. present an exciting contribution to geoscience education with new virtual field sites for a range of students. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this paper and can imagine using it in my own classroom, however, without any data presented regarding student feedback or pedagogical theory, it needs major revision before publication as a research article. As it stands now, it is more an article on how the game faired, not a study on its impact or use.

Mainly, the authors do not present any quantitative feedback from students on games feasibility. Words used to assess the game were relative and speculative. With the addition of quantitative data relating to student use and feedback, this paper has the potential to fully address relevant scientific questions within the scope of GC. This is a significant classroom advancement with the potential to be implemented immediately but there is little to no inquiry as to how to build the tool in other classrooms. This manuscript would be benefitted by 1) more data involving student feedback, 2) more data on the type of computers used, 3) more information on how to build the environments. The paper was well written and had few technical errors. It was exciting to read and I look forward to reading the final manuscript

Technical Corrections:

Line 30 - I agree with your statement that “The need for educational experiences that incorporate fundamentals will remain after the pandemic.”, but evidence is needed. It is a strong statement to write without any examples as to why.

Line 35 – I would argue that it is closely tied still

Line 50 – Erase the “,” after “virtual field experience”

Line 72 - Does your line take in to account elevation changes?

Line 108 – “with steeply-dipping/overturned limbs”

Line 91 – you have already defined SfM, you can use it from here on out

Line 119 – I think this aerial image would be a great addition to figure 1

Line 139 – This is great, but where is the data? How many is “most”? I’d like to see the student feedback associated with this exercise

Line 140 – What type of machines were they using, with how much RAM and which type of graphic card? Have you tested it on computers with less RAM or an unstable wifi connection?

Figure 2 – Very cool graphics! Is there any scale available?

203 – What type of accommodations were prepared?

228 – I think this is fantastic news but would like information on the “array of hardware, connection speeds, and browsers” for guidance when other professors implement this game.