Field or virtual? Perceived impact of academic excursions through the eyes of (future) hydrologists

Abstract. Field training such as excursions have always been an integral part of the education of geoscientists. The value of these excursions is frequently debated, related to the efforts and costs involved with their organization. Professionally prepared virtual excursions are sometimes presented as a possible alternative for field activities. This debate has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic: the lockdown forced teachers to come up with virtual and online education material, also for fieldwork and excursions.

One of the courses at Wageningen University (the Netherlands) heavily affected by COVID-19 restrictions was the Master course Catchment and Climate Hydrology. An important and integral component of that course is an 8-day excursion to Iceland where relatively undisturbed catchments are studied in a country heavily affected by climate change. All students from the 2020 and 2021 cohort took the alternative professionally prepared virtual excursion. After the pandemic, in 2022, these students did get the offer to join an extra added excursion. About 50 % of that population was able to join. This configuration, involving student cohorts that participated only in the field excursion, only in the virtual excursion, or in both, provided an unique opportunity to assess student evaluations of field-based education and the potential of virtual alternatives.

A questionnaire was sent to excursion participants to critically evaluate the impact of the excursion on their scientific development and their view on real versus virtual excursions for geoscientists. The time frame for the questionnaire runs from 2011 to 2025, including COVID-19 years 2020 and 2021.

The participants clearly indicate that they appreciated the effort of making a virtual excursion, but that the impact of that virtual excursion on their scientific development was a lot lower than for the equivalent real excursion. The reasons indicated are manifold: they missed the inspirational interaction with the teaching staff and linking up with their peers to create a professional network. Therefor the main conclusion of this inventory is that preparing virtual excursions for Master students can be worth the investment, but just as an extra tool in the course tool box, but not as a replacement for real excursions.