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Woodland Education Center Case Study:

Q3Rangers Discovering the Environment with Nova5000

Steve Lawson is the Trust Director of the Offwell Woodland and Wildlife Trust, situated on the south coast of England in Devon. The Trust runs the Woodland Education Centre in partnership with the Forestry Commission. Trained staff lead structured activities in natural habitats. Science, IT, Geography and English are integrated into practical activities for all levels. Mr. Lawson began his career in agriculture and established the Woodland Education Centre in 1986. We talked to Mr. Lawson about the specific environmental learning program he has developed for the Nova5000. After a successful pilot scheme the Trust has now established a learning project using the Nova5000 in the field and has plans for extensive roll-out in a whole range of field schemes. The Trust has always been pioneering the use of IT in environmental education. They were one of the first UK wildlife charities to use IT on a broad scale providing wildlife webcams and remote experiments over the Internet. They have a very large website which attracts up to 1.5 million hits a month. It is a state approved education resource not only in the UK but throughout the US.

What made you look for a solution like the Nova5000?

"We were looking for a way to utilize IT outside in the field. The problem in the past was that IT has just been linked to computers in buildings and then students go outside to the natural world. We wanted to avoid the separation and so looked for a small, robust unit, with good sound quality and Instant On that would make it possible to bring IT into the field. I visited the BETT Education Show in London and saw the Nova5000 device there and found that the specs fitted very well with what we wanted..."

How has your experience been of applying the Nova5000 in the field?

"The retention by students is remarkable when using it. They really take to the idea of using computers in field as they find out about specific animals and their role in the natural environment. A human educator may require considerable expertise to maintain the focused attention of groups of students and spoken information is often quickly forgotten. Young people have clearly become accustomed to viewing computers as exciting sources of entertainment and therefore pay close attention to them. Their retention of information is also greatly enhanced because of the skilled use of images, sounds and practical hands-on exploration.

We needed to find a way to integrate IT into practical activities, not just walking outside with the computer but for example really using it to understand and engage with specific curriculum topics such as life cycles and food chains. Using computers in conjunction with practical activities is the key. For example, students can hunt through a pile of rotting logs to search for some of the 1,700 different invertebrates which might be living there. The students can then find out about their discoveries using the Nova..."

What is the greatest challenge the Nova5000 has enabled you to overcome

"The Offwell Woodland and Wildlife Trust is a charity. To raise the money to enable us to carry out our work is an ongoing struggle. We were able to fund the Nova with the help of a local community support group and the Nova has paid back the investment multi-fold. The capital cost is insignificant compared with the cost of employing staff and training them. The Nova5000 helps us to deliver our education programs more effectively and with fewer staff. The Nova5000 is consistent in presenting a quality message all day, every day. We get exceptionally busy during the field work season and the Nova5000 has significantly reduced the workload and released staff, while at the same time maintaining quality of product. For these reasons it is inevitable that using computers in this way will become commonplace.

I've been in environmental education for over 20 years and this is the biggest single step forward that I have seen. What we've been able to do now on the Woodland Discovery Trail is make it entirely self guided – an approved volunteer or teacher doesn't even need to know the site or what is coming next – it is all delivered by computers which even guide students through the practical activities. The Woodland Discovery Trail is endorsed by the International Tree Foundation and can be adapted to suit any woodland site. It is now being marketed commercially..."

To learn more about the Offwell Woodland and Wildlife Trust Nova5000 Project read the following series of extracts from their Summer newsletter.

“It’s just so cool!” said one youngster. “Yes” said another. “It’s as cool as my Nintendo.” These were two comments from enthusiastic pupils who had just used the Trust’s new electronic guides in one of their activities. “Its brilliant!” said one teacher. “It adds a whole new dimension” offered another.

These comments were made during trials of the first phase of an exclusive, revolutionary electronic outdoor guide system, known as Q3 Rangers, now being tested at the Woodland Education Centre. Q3 Rangers are hand-held computer systems for hire by schools and the public. The Q3 Rangers deliver information using sounds and spoken word, images, video, maps, diagrams and text. The devices know where the user is at all times so that this information can be presented at appropriate points entirely automatically, courtesy of an on-board global positioning satellite system.

Users can also access a wealth of information at any point, simply by tapping on a button. This includes general interest information on the area, as well as wildlife information specific to the Centre. For instance, you can access topics such as a pictorial guide to 50 of the most common wildflowers at the Centre, together with user-friendly guides and information on butterflies, birds and other wildlife you might see or hear at the Centre. You cannot always have an expert in tow to tell you interesting facts at certain points and make sure that you don’t get lost on a visit to the Centre. However, with a Q3 Ranger in your hand, you will have the next best thing.

The Q3 Rangers have been developed for two different user groups. One set of content is currently being refined for educational users, while another is being produced for individuals and family groups who wish to enjoy the Centre.

The trials have been very revealing and have thrown up some considerable surprises. The educational Q3 Rangers have so far been developed for use by teachers or adults leading a group. What has become very apparent over the trials is that they are also suitable for use by children in the group. Pupils as young as 5 and 6 have taken to it like a duck to water, queuing to find out information on their particular special specimen. What is even more surprising is the rapt attention which pupils pay to what the Q3 Rangers say, listening quietly, while absorbing and remembering information which would have been in one ear and out of the other if imparted by a human source!

The value of the Q3 Rangers for such activities is that it allows non-specialists to take educational activities using all of the Trust’s decades of experience and accrued resources to deliver quality controlled, critically important content themselves. What has also been surprising in the trials is the enthusiastic response of people of the older generation who might be expected to shy away from such new technology. By and large, they have embraced it whole-heartedly with the common query “When can we have one?”

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