When beauty meets dedication in highly educative tools.
Once upon a time, teaching was as dull as ditchwater. Then, Gene Cooper and his wife Naomi, who is also his main partner in Fourchambers Studio , had two great ideas in mind, conceiving 360parks.com: to present wonders of nature and to make, out of them, educative tools. 
Most of the work is done by the couple, along with some good friends.
The project, started for the love of the founder of Four Chambers Studios and his colleagues for outdoor, soon transformed into a set of instruments, which received a warm welcome by National Parks. In fact, the company not only produces educational CDROMs, integrated with panos, texts, videos and interactive maps, (which are available for purchase in the reserves, in bookshops and on 360parks website) but a full range of instruments, to provide interpretive information on what lies beneath the rocks, the trees, the valleys and the monuments of the natural parks.
If interaction makes understanding easier, the instruments developed and offered by Gene and his company make of the learning's process a...piece of cake.
Take - for example - the so called Interactive Exhibit Technology, a collaboration with Dan Collins of Arizona State University. The above mentioned tools are integrated with solid models, where what counts is the curiosity of the user. The system will in fact make everything in its power to explain him geological phenomena, the historical facts, the ecological, geographic and cultural aspects connected to a park, integrated into an intelligent mix among solid and tactical models, information and computers, responsive to equipments such as mice and 3D pens, operated by the sightseer.
The NPS adopted the instruments launched by Four Chamber Studio for Ranger Led Virtual Tours, which give to the visitor the chance to virtually access remote areas of the reserves and hence understand, in a deeper way, the paths beneath the formation of the ecosystem that is being visited. Some parks even collaborated in the shootings, as when Four Chambers Studio instructed the staff of Carlsbad Caverns on taking 360° pictures into locations otherwise unaccessible.
click here to view Carlsbad Caverns panoramamore panoramas on Carlsbad Caverns CD-Rom
Four Chambers Studio's project has been welcomed by a huge number of parks, such as the Dry Tortugas, the Mesa Verde, Lechuguilla Cave, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Cedar Breaks and by historical places too, such as the Montezuma Castle National Monument, for a total around 25 locations.
click here to view Drytortugas National Park panoramamore panoramas on Drytortugas National Park CD-Rom
click here to view Mesa Verde National Park panoramamore panoramas on Mesa Verde National Park CD-Rom
click here to view Lechuguilla cave panoramamore panoramas on Lechuguilla cave CD-Rom
click here to view Grand Canyon panoramamore panoramas on Grand Canyon CD-Rom
click here to view Montezuma Castle panoramamore panoramas on Ancient Dwellings of the Southwest CD-Rom
click here to view Yosemite Ahwanee panorama
click here to view Yosemite Halfdome Chains panorama
click here to view Yosemite Glenaul Sunset panorama
But the website still needs an updating, considered that Gene told to VRMag that by the end of the year 60 more reserves will be added and he and his colleagues even entered into aerial panoramic shooting....
aerial view of Montezuma CastleAs Gene Cooper reported: "We love what we do and we're equally pleased that the end user and customer gets so much excitement and joy out of being able to experience these hard to reach places. Our collaborations with the NPS and Cooperating Associations keep growing too. At the moment, we're currently working with the Grand Tetons National Park and Mammoth Cave National Park on new projects as well as a number of unique projects with the Bureau of Land Management in New Mexico and California. One of the most exciting things for me is the pioneering of new techniques and technologies. Its an exciting process and we're proud to bring our new technologies and tools to the parks for everyone to enjoy. One of the most recent developments has been using older techniques called light painting and applying it to cave settings to get the fully lit caves in 360 format. The National Speleological Society and Descent Magazines recently published our process so that others could learn from the techniques and apply it to still photography."
Yes, teaching and learning have never been easier...
Links:
Fourchambers Studio web site
360Parks.com
360Parks online store
Previous articles about Fourchambers Studio:
TRAVELING THE COLORADO RIVER & GRAND CANYON
Related articles:
VIRTUAL PARKS, VRLOG
THE UNDERGROUND CAVES OF SLOVENIA
