Remote teaching: implementation of virtual labs

In view of the current situation, Teaching must be adapted to distance learning. While lectures can be delivered online via live or recorded videos, labs often have to be completely rethought. Yet they can be almost directly transposed in the case of Paleontology: students no longer manipulate fossils manually but virtually using the numerous digital 3D models of fossils available on the Internet (see for instance the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life).

In this context, I produced 3D models of 3 trilobites from the teaching Collection of the University of Lausanne using photogrammetry. These 3 trilobites form a fictitious assemblage whose age must be determined by the students from the identification of the orders and groups of these trilobites and their stratigraphic distribution. This exercise, part of our first “Virtual Lab”, can be found here.