Virtual Reality as educational technology

Virtual Reality (VR) is one of the most interesting and promising modern technologies. In the version of immersion (immersive VR), it has already been used with excellent results in many and completely different fields such as medicine, fine arts, natural sciences, foreign learning languages, engineering, etc. (Silva et al., 2018; Martingano et al., 2021; Maragkou et al., 2018; Perez-Ramirez et al., 2021;Turkay et al., 2021). According to one of its (many) definitions, immersive VR allows for experimentation and the acquisition of 'simulated experiences' - that is, experiences similar to real ones, those created by the physical world. It therefore offers the user a virtual, but quite realistic and ultimately experiential experience. The level of attention, concentration and engagement of users can increase thanks to its feel immersion and the sense of "presence" created by this technology (Sherman et al., 2003; Dengel et al., 2019). That alone would be enough to attract the interest of the educational community. Indeed, the possibilities opened up by VR in its field were quickly realized and exploitedEducation: thanks to VR, the microcosm and the macrocosm, nature at the micro- and nano-scale but also at astronomical scale, the inside of the human body and living beings but also the depths of the oceansand the bowels of the earth, everything becomes 'visitable', 'observable' and 'studyable'. Today they are also being planned virtual environments or 'worlds' (virtual worlds) aimed at learners of all ages are developed, either in formal education (K-12 and Universities) or in vocational training, or in informal education.
In particular in the context of the EduSeismArtTec research project, VR was utilized in its context
of Educational Seismology, with three different objectives: (a) to introduce students to basic concepts
of the science of Seismology, so that they can get to know in an attractive way a natural phenomenon such as an earthquake, the causes and the mechanisms behind it, (b) to give 'for sure' the experience of a (virtual) earthquake, and (c)
to educate in a playful way the public in dealing with an earthquake and the correct behavior before, against
during, and after the earthquake, on an individual and social level.