Development and evaluation of a support system for forest education

Field education programs have been conducted throughout the world because learning through experience is an important process in environmental and forest education. We developed a support system for forest education that consists mainly of a Global Positioning System (GPS) and personal digital assistant (PDA). Moreover, field experiments were conducted to evaluate educational efficacy as well as usability of the developed system. Through a post-questionnaire the developed system was highly evaluated in terms of educational efficacy and enjoyment. On the other hand, the questionnaire revealed the need for technical improvements. For example, the drawing function, which involves the use of a stylus pen, was the most poorly evaluated because a drawing could not be partially erased as with an eraser and representation was not sufficiently accurate. In addition, positions where information on nature appeared were sometimes inaccurate due to positional errors caused by using the autonomous GPS. Some participants answered that walking with the developed system was also troublesome due to its shape and size. In fact, they did not feel comfortable about the cables connecting the GPS to the PDA and GPS to its antenna. Although there were some problems with the system, we believe that the field education program was successful because 95% of the participants answered that they would join a similar program again.