Senior Thesis Project
VR as an Educational Tool
Virtual Reality is becoming more and more revolutionary and useful as time goes on. It’s ability to immerse viewers in an environment is what makes VR so impactful. Using the technology to help educate people and create meaningful experiences will help the technology become even more prominent. To show this I have used VR technology to create an educational experience where viewers will learn about our struggling bee population and how they can help. Immersing viewers into the bees’ environment and allowing them to have an experience will have a bigger impact than other forms of media.
Designing in VR
Designing in VR was new to me so I researched many different ways to make the experience the best it can be while keeping user experience and physical and mental safety at the forefront. I also created graphics and videos to help walk viewers through the experience including wearing the headset, how to open the apps, and how to use the controller.
Vbee
Vbee is a virtual reality experience that aims to spread awareness and call viewers to take action to slow the decline of the bee population. When designing this experience, I wanted it to be impactful and fun for the audience. I wanted to tell a story in three acts from a bee’s perspective. I decided to use a low poly style to make it more accessible for viewers and have liberties to tell my story.
Bee Aware
A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers every day
Honey bees, wild and domestic, perform around 80% of all pollination worldwide
Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops are pollinated by bees
Those crops supply around 90% of the world’s nutrition
But the bee population has been in decline for decades
Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of human factors
Deforestation and pesticides are the main causes that have been destroying the bee habitat
Act 1
The first act is educational and takes the viewers on a ride from the perspective of a bee. You will ride around a garden on a bee pollinating different flowers. Each one you stop at will teach you important facts about what bees do and why they are essential to our survival.
Act 2
The second act is about the causes of bee population decline. You will experience first hand the causes of population decline and why it is getting harder for bees to survive. Human activities like deforestation and pesticide use destroy the bees’ habitat and create a poisonous environment.
Act 3
The third and final act is all about action and what viewers can do to help save the bees. The viewer will now explore a local beekeepers house and small, personal hive. You will learn different ways to help make an impact in the bee population decline. These are simple things everyone can do to help like planting a bee garden, going pesticide free, providing trees for bees, or creating a bee bath.
