This GC Insights presents a virtual fieldwork module integrating 360 videos and inquiry-based learning to support geoscience education at the upper secondary level. The design enables students to engage in authentic scientific practices, including data collection, interpretation, and hypothesis formation. The paper discusses how virtual environments can facilitate an exploratory learning and foster deeper conceptual understanding, when designed carefully as a full-phase inquiry lesson.

We added more science communication activities and cultural content from Māori cultural experts in a course that combines online interactive virtual fieldtrip content with reflective workshops, laboratory sessions, and fieldwork, to reflect a need for these skills in the Aotearoa NZ workforce. Students mentioned science communication and cultural competence more when responding to a survey question regarding What they learnt?, and they highlighted the importance that these skills might have for themselves.

In this study, we use cosmogenic-sourced ³He to determine the eruption ages of 23 lava flows at Mt Ruapehu, Aotearoa New Zealand, and we show how this method can help overcome challenges associated with traditional dating methods in young lavas. Comparison with other methods demonstrates the accuracy of our data and the method's reliability. The new eruption ages allowed us to identify periods of quasi-simultaneous activity from different volcanic vents during the last 20 000 years.

Volcanoes where tectonic plates drift apart pose eruption and earthquake hazards. Underground waters are difficult to track. Underground microbial life is probably plentiful but unexplored. Scientists discussed the idea of drilling two boreholes in the Okataina Volcanic Centre, New Zealand, to unravel the connections between volcano, faults, geotherms, and the biosphere, also integrating mātauranga Māori (Indigenous knowledge) to assess hazards and manage resources and microbial ecosystems.

Prehistoric volcanic eruptions are often dated by wiggle matching series of radiocarbon ages on tree rings to standard calibration curves, ignoring potential contamination by 'old' carbon given off by the volcano. We modeled the effects of low amounts of contamination on wiggle match dates for the 10th century Changbaishan eruption and found evidence of contamination in all. We propose a new protocol to identify the presence of contamination, and provide more secure dates for major eruptions.