Promoting a Sense of Place Virtually: A Review of the ESA Weekly Water Cooler Chat Focused on Virtual Sense of Place

Abstract

The world has forever been changed by the pandemic. It does not look or operate like it did prior to COVID-19, and we do not know what it will look like moving forward. The current "normal," whether still facing quarantine or not, presents both challenges and opportunities. The ESA Weekly Water Cooler Chat is a response to the COVID-19 pandemic that brings together practitioners and researchers by providing a space for members to chat about what they are facing. As many people are forced into a "virtual" remoteness, the Water Cooler topics often address online or virtual field experiences. The Undergraduate Field Experiences Research Network (UFERN) (NSF RCN-UBE grant #173056) and ESA came together in April 2020 to organize a transdisciplinary chat, "Connecting to Place-Virtually." Motivations and Purpose In undergraduate field learning experiences, students often gain a connection to the physical field environment or field learning site, and often to the cultural attributes of its setting as well (e.g., Jolley et al. 2018). The immersed experience and connection to the object of study is part of the value for field experiences (Giamellaro 2014). Many current ecologists can relate to this feeling of connection either through a current place of study, a memory of their own undergraduate field experiences, or a field excursion they have led (Morales et al. in press).

Measuring novice-expert sense of place for a far-away place: Implications for geoscience instruction

“…While socio-cultural elements of places may be more difficult to represent virtually, there have been efforts to incorporate the cultural elements of a place into virtual environments [ 75 ]. For these reasons, some argue that virtual environments can be intentionally designed to foster a student’s sense of place [ 76 ]. However, this has yet to be a focus of virtual or immersive experiences.…”

Factors Determining the COVID-19 Vaccinated Tourists’ Intention to Repeat Behaviour: An Empirical Perspective for a New Normal

“…Places influence the sense of ourselves, our job capacity, and individuals essentially. The place is described to include physical conditions, human behaviours, and social and psychological human processes that are embedded in an environment [65]. The tourism industry needs to explore the in-depth meanings of the place for marketing.…”