Three virtual (web-based) forestry tours were created by Oregon State, Auburn, and Pennsylvania State Universities. Join us to learn how these were developed and how they compare to traditional field tours as learning tools.

Virtual (web-based) tours are among the many new educational tools, available through Internet technology, with continuing forestry education applications. While technology exists to create virtual tour web pages, little is understood about how they meet educational objectives and whether they can be effective substitutes for traditional field tours. The Sustainable Forestry Partnership at Oregon State, Auburn and Pennsylvania State Universities, with partial funding from the Society of American Foresters (SAF), created three virtual tours featuring a forest in each of the three states. All three tours discuss the Montreal Criteria and Indicators for sustainability.

For this Feature Forest presentation, representatives from all three universities will share their virtual forest tours, and illustrate options available for creating similar virtual tours. We will also explore the results of research from Oregon State University that compared virtual and field tours as educational tools, and discuss implications of using virtual tours for continuing forestry education purposes.

All three tours will soon be available on the SAF webpage. SAF members will be able to earn continuing forestry education credits by viewing these tours, learning about sustainable forestry, and completing the accompanying quizzes.