Creating Ambassadors of Planet Earth: The Overview Effect in K12 Education

The overview effect is the commonly reported experience of astronauts viewing planet Earth from space and the subsequent reflection on and processing of this experience. The overview effect is associated with feelings of awe, self-transcendence, and a change of perspective and identity that manifest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in psychology Vol. 11; p. 540996
Main Authors van Limpt - Broers, H. Anna T., Postma, Marie, Louwerse, Max M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Frontiers Media S.A 07.10.2020
Subjects
awe
education
immersion
overview effect
Psychology
virtual reality
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Summary:The overview effect is the commonly reported experience of astronauts viewing planet Earth from space and the subsequent reflection on and processing of this experience. The overview effect is associated with feelings of awe, self-transcendence, and a change of perspective and identity that manifest themselves in taking steps toward protecting the fragile ecosystem. In the current study, we investigated whether the overview effect can be obtained in school children when simulated using virtual reality (VR) and whether the effect has a positive impact on learning gains. Using questionnaires and attention data in an existing simulation environment used in the school system, we showed that the VR simulation elicits an overview effect experience. Moreover, the experience yields learning gains in the domain of astrophysics. These findings are in line with past evidence regarding the positive impact of awe on learning and can be used to support further investigations of the relation between the overview effect and behavioral changes, specifically for educational purposes.
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Edited by: Henderika de Vries, Yale University, United States
Reviewed by: Bin Jiang, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Paul Vincent Antoine Delnooz, Independent Researcher, Breda, Netherlands
This article was submitted to Environmental Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.540996