Teacher Shares Silk Road Travels with Students Using VR Technology

“My wife (Dalton Math Teacher Jessica Emory) and I like to travel to places that we don’t know anything about,” commented Dr. Armstrong about his trip. “I had this idea of the Silk Road being this easily traversable 'thing,' but it is hard.” Armstrong said that the mountain ranges -- which prevented contact between people -- became a difficult trade route, and the items which were transported across such challenging terrain must’ve been extremely desirable.

 

Dr. Armstrong traveled the Silk Road through portions of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, spending time each day to take VR panoramas of mountain passes, intrepid trails, the historic Fergana Valley, different modern cities of Central Asia, as well as the growing effects of climate change.

 

In collaboration with Third grade House Advisor Sandra Brudnick, Dr. Michelle Marcus from Dalton’s Museum Program, as well as Anson Kendall and Kristie Guiliano from New Lab, Dr. Armstrong created a VR experience incorporating the many 360 degree photographs taken throughout his trip. Students put themselves in Dr. Armstrong’s shoes and viewed beautiful scenes from various stops along his journey, including mosques and schools in places such as Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in Central Asia.

 

"Despite the fact that we can go online and find images, there isn't an abundance of high-quality imagery available of the Silk Road. We went, in part, to bring back immersive digital experiences to show students how this region looks present day, how it is changing, and how the sites they are studying appear now," said Dr. Armstrong.

 

In addition to this immersive VR experience, students saw Islamic art and artifacts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Dr. Marcus. They then created a list of attributes and went on a VR scavenger hunt to find these attributes in the various sites that Tom shared with them. Bringing H43’s study of art history and archaeology to life was a truly beautiful collaboration.