An Award at the Reimagine Education Awards 2022
The VR Mine – A Virtual Mine for the Raw Materials Experts of Tomorrow
The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the use of energy sources as socio-political leverage dramatically demonstrate the importance of raw materials: both for the preservation of a peaceful and prosperous society and for the maintenance of a prosperous economy. This current model of energy supply is an example of the large number of raw materials that play an essential role in our economic and social life.
The lack of acceptance of the raw materials sector by German politics and society has, in recent decades, led to politically established, industrially desired, and publicly accepted raw material dependencies on countries such as Russia and China. In spite of all this, the raw materials sector is still significant for German society. There are around 2,700 individual mines in Germany and over 26,000 in Europe. Even if we just consider the German building materials industry, it alone makes a relevant contribution to the economic performance and employment of the manufacturing sector through the extraction and processing of stone and earth products, in particular into building materials. For the year 2020, a direct gross added value of around 11.1 billion euros has been calculated from the manufacture of stone and earth products. Total employment in the building materials and earths industry is around 150,000 skilled jobs, 6,000 small, medium and large companies, and 39 billion euros in sales per year. The German mining supply industry is also at the forefront of technology worldwide. There are about 150 manufacturers of mining machinery in this country and they employ around 14,000 people.
Training the Raw Materials Experts of Tomorrow
This being so, the training of mining engineers continues to be a highly relevant subject. The Sustainable Resources and Energy Supply (B.Sc.) and Mineral Resources Engineering (M.Sc.) degree programs at RWTH teach content that deals with the sustainable and responsible extraction and processing of mineral raw materials. The challenges in teaching are in particular the transferability of theoretical knowledge to practical application. This requires access to active mines, something that is often limited due to their remoteness and the high safety requirements that result from the operating environment. In addition, it is quite difficult for students to imagine the complex three-dimensional relationships that exist in underground mines.
The use of digital technologies has become an integral part of many teaching activities at RWTH Aachen University. With the virtual reality mine (VR Mine), which was developed by RWTH, the Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering (MRE) is using a virtual mine that enables students of mineral resources engineering to learn in a task-oriented and practical manner. The VR Mine allows students wearing VR goggles to visit an interactive VR model of a mine modeled after the Scheelite mine in Mittersill, Austria. Students can move freely in the virtual environment, interact with objects, and solve problems. They are accompanied by a digital miner and as such, they receive feedback, extended information in the form of 360° videos. and hints on the tasks that they have been set. The individual tasks are embedded in a didactic teaching concept, which ranges from explanations to allowing the students to independently implement the respective learning content. Through this, the VR mine achieves a higher level of motivation and better learning outcomes for students when compared to traditional face-to-face teaching.
Success at the 2022 Education Oscars
At RWTH Aachen University, the VR Mine has so far been integrated into the M.Sc. Mineral Resources Engineering, the M.Sc. European Mining Course (EMC) and the B.Sc. Sustainable Resources and Energy Supply. What’s more, it is also being used at Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia) and Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria). The VR Mine has also been presented at conferences and the results have been published in several scientific articles, which has generated a lot of interest. The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Raw Materials recognized the VR Mine as being a success story.
The Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering team received a special honor for the VR Mine as they won second place in the 2022 Reimagine Education Awards. Professor Bernd Lottermoser, Director of the Institute, sees this award as proof of the creativity and innovative strength of the “Made in Aachen” label:
“Over 5 years, we have created an original digital tool for teaching that is worthy of this award, and I would like to take this opportunity to praise my co-workers. Teaching engineering sciences at a university level is really all about presenting complexity without letting things get out of hand, but also not simplifying complicated topics unacceptably and offering different approaches for different tastes.”
The Reimagine Education Awards are presented by the Wharton School/Business School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and QS Quacquarelli Symonds – the publishers of the World University Rankings. These awards serve to recognize the most innovative and effective approaches to teaching and learning. The Reimagine Education Awards are considered to be the Oscars of education and they provide a platform for the global higher education sector to identify and recognize outstanding educational innovation. With over 500 international jurors as well as a 25-member grand jury, the winners receive the unequivocal recognition of education experts from around the world. With its VR Mine project, the team from the Institute of Mineral Resources Engineering achieved second place in the Immersive Experiential Learning category of the competition, which attracted around 1,200 entries from 77 countries.
– Authors: Yannick Feldmann, Nils Schlatter, Bernd Lottermoser