Galapagos Islands: Learning in a Virtual World

"Nothing could be less inviting than the first appearance," Charles Darwin writes of his encounter with the terrain of the Galapagos Islands in 1835, "A broken field of black basaltic lava, thrown into the most rugged waves, and crossed by great fissures, is everywhere covered by stunted, sunburnt brushwood, which shows little signs of life."

At the University of Cincinnati's recreation of the Galapagos Islands in the virtual world of Second Life®, a 3-D model of the islands, stark and dry, rising steep out of a blue sea, provides a window into the peculiar geography that Darwin observed in his momentous encounter. The virtual islands, I am told, were built using digital elevation maps to recreate the unique geography and terrain.

I am mesmerized by the terrain as I fly around the virtual Galapagos and take views from San Cristobal and then at Isabela. I move my computer's virtual camera to varying angles and distances - see the islands from the sky as birds might. It is a remarkable way to learn.

This peculiar geography of the islands was, of course, central to Darwin's thinking that each species did not descend from its own separately created ancestor but may have "evolved" from others. These islands, born of volcanic fire and isolated some 600 miles off the western coast of the South American mainland, provided a landscape with an "original paucity" of life on which "colonists" - whether plant or bird or reptile - might evolve into new forms adapted to open niches in the biological economy of the islands. They must have seemed natural laboratories to Darwin's observant eye.

"[O]ne might really fancy," Darwin muses in regards to the birds of the Galapagos, "that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."

The Galapagos Project in Second Life is part of the University of Cincinnati's broader celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Fleep Tuque, who manages the Second Life projects for the university, tells me one day. As I visit the Galapagos build, I am struck by the innovative ways in which educators have begun to make use of virtual worlds.

Beyond the 3-D model of the islands, the sims of the Galapagos Project host the Darwin Celebration Theatre at which individuals from around the world (in the form of avatars) could participate in live events and symposia streamed into Second Life. There are models also of wildlife of the islands - iguanas, lizards, the finches and tortoises. A replica of the Beagle extends an automated tour of the islands - providing textual notes of Darwin's visit in 1835. According to an article in Educause Review by Chris Collins and Ronald Millard of University of Cincinnati, the islands would also serve as a repositary where photographs, videos and materials collected by students on trips to study Darwin's works might be shared with the broader public.

The virtual experience of the Galapagos is not the same as a real life visit to the islands - but if it is something less, it is also something more. The possibility of shared, communal learning in the virtual world with colleagues and strangers from across continents and time zones intriques me. More, in this world where pigs might literally fly and night becomes day by the click of a menu button, there is also the wonderful sense of whimsy - the measured pace of Lionel the goat wandering by water, a ride on a giant tortoise that can fly, the random swishes of an animated lizard's tail.