"<< Background >>BridgET aims at addressing a growing demand for highly skilled professionals in the coastal and marine geosciences sector, who can be innovative in visualization, analysis, model creation, interpretation and communication of geological and environmental data in 3D. Digital geologic mapping is a mature technology, although dramatically improved recently with the advent of new state-of-the-art techniques such as Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry and progress in computer vision and image analysis. Environmental reality-based 3D models can now be generated particularly through the aid of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). But the key advance has been the ability to easily construct high-resolution, photorealistic terrain models (as a base surface for 3D mapping) in the underwater environment. The submarine domain has always been less accessible and more economically challenging to investigate than the terrestrial one. But these technologies are now transforming field studies, enabling the resolution of problems that were extremely complex without technological progress, especially in industry (e.g. oil and gas, renewable energy, etc.), marine spatial planning and sustainable coastal and offshore environmental management practices. New methods and techniques have allowed a seamless combination of terrestrial and marine data, that is supporting the development of a more solid holistic approach to understand our changing environments and design appropriate management measures accordingly. The ability to easily examine multiple view angles of seamless seabed’s and coastal 3D surfaces, outside the logistical constraints, becomes even more efficient when 3D models can be experienced in Virtual Reality (VR). In this case, a true cognitive breakthrough is provided giving the potential to launch a new generation of studies as well as to promote inclusive teaching and learning that value the diversity of all learners and so actions for a sustainable future. Efforts are needed, however, to provide best practices for appropriate workflows when using VR in the field of coastal and marine geosciences in its many applications, and to outline how this technology can help inclusive 3D learning.The interdisciplinary European partnership of our project is made up by marine geoscientists and professionals with tracked expertise in geohazard assessment and climate-driven impacts in tectonically and/or climatically sensitive areas. The team will focus on learning and teaching how to build reality-based 3D model of selected submarine and coastal regions, to improve their exploration through the medium of VR, with a goal of developing an ad-hoc curriculum at postgraduate level to help students acquire and build their own advanced skills in these areas. BridgET aims at deeply renew the way in which applied marine geosciences can be taught, strengthening digital readiness, resilience and capacity in students. The most challenging impact we would like to achieve will be the promotion of a change toward a greater inclusion in the labor market commonly involved in delivering new tools, approaches, platforms and sensors for seafloor mapping, marine spatial planning and marine renewable energy, with the view of pursuing a more robust approach to diversity and inclusion in the field of marine geosciences, where there's a documented lack of diversity.<< Objectives >>BridgET has been designed to develop innovative and inclusive teaching methods to upgrade key skills and scientific expertise in the field of 3D geological mapping for reliable integration of onshore and offshore multiscale geospatial datasets, to provide standardized workflow for 3D reconstructions of coastal regions and submarine environments. An accurate integration of both terrestrial and submerged geospatial datasets, is indeed a practice that represents a major gap in coastal management and that still need to be addressed in many countries, where climate change, rising sea levels, tectonic and marine geohazard of different nature are considerable environmental issues. Accordingly, and through the implementation of project activities, BridgET will seek to provide innovation in the way in which coastal and marine geosciences are taught, where emphasis will be placed on the use of VR, not only as a tool to improve student engagement in the investigation and spatial understanding of coastal and submarine environments, but also as a vehicle to promote inclusion in the field of geosciences. We believe that developing novel methods of 3D immersive teaching about ‘hard to reach’ environments and bring the onshore and offshore environments into the classroom, for students of any gender, race, culture, etc..., will teach them those skills and competencies required by the labor market, that can make a difference for a sustainable future. This will be done providing dedicated schools where students can experience the use of innovative technologies on the filed, the process of the data with dedicated software, and their analysis to solve and assess real problems in a real context. New teaching methods will be designed in order to promote a more inclusive geoscience curriculum, that can also be followed by students with special educational needs, which is actually a very challenging issue in this field, where terrain field activities are required. As these procedures are not yet appropriately developed and adopted, the project will focus on their design and the production of tools and frameworks for their implementation in the curricula currently in place at the universities involved. Finally, BridgET will provide a rich collection of datasets, tools and toolkits for VR exploration and interactive learning paths that all partners will extensively use for outreach activities aimed at increasing the awareness of society on the need for effective measures for sustainable management of our resources and on the key role that marine geosciences will play in the grand environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.<< Implementation >>The project is based on the delivery of innovative and inclusive learning and teaching activities through the organization of dedicated summer schools for MSc students. Schools will focus on giving students a hands-on experience of the variety of methods and approaches adopted in geospatial data acquisition and processing for the seamless generation of 3D models (i.e. Digital Terrain Models – DTM) of coastal regions. Three case studies will be selected to approach a coastal geohazard assessment based on an immersive observation of geomorphological data/geological phenomena and human interaction with physical processes from multiple perspectives. Practical activities will be in particular carried out in Santorini, on the shores and slopes of mount Etna and in Maldives. In Maldives we will take advantage of a research facility of the University of Milano-Bicocca (MaRHE - Marine and High Educational Research - Center), established in 2009 with the purpose of carrying our research and high education activities. All areas have been and are currently studied by project participants that already have collected consistent amount of data in these regions, that are particularly sensitive to a number of different geohazards and pose different challenges to the local population and socio-economic framework. We will prepare a defined multiscale and multisource geospatial datasets for each coastal regions that will be further supplemented with dedicated surveys during summer schools. Their geospatial integration will allow the creation of a VR learning environment (implementing the dataset with proper tools and dedicated software) that will allow all students and teachers to navigate in real-time and study and analyze processes and environments that otherwise would be impossible to observe. Students will test the application of their knowledge to provide coastal geohazard assessment and proposal for management measures, for each of the proposed case study (one for each summer school). All the involved universities will promote the inclusion of new approach for teaching and training activity, in the field of marine geosciences, in their educational program at MSc level. We planned three transnational project meetings to define and plan precisely, from the beginning and through the progress of the project, all project activities, especially the summer schools, the expected project results and the organization of two multiplier events. During the first Kick-off meeting, a Management project Committee (MC) will be established with a selected representative from each partner. The MC will be in charge of the executive management and it will ensure the adherence of all activities to the project timetable supporting a unique decision-making process capable of ensuring a balanced management of the implementation. Besides teaching activities, two multiplier events and a variety of outreach activities will be organized. One national multiplier event will focus on encouraging a more effective communication between academics, scientists, industries, professionals and social parties, with the goal of gathering information to better design a new curriculum in marine geohazard assessment and sustainability of coastal regions and to promote a major inclusive perspective in the labor market, showing the BridgET approach. A second one, planned toward the end of the project, will be organized as a side event within the framework of a relevant international conference in geosciences (es. EGU or analogue) to facilitate dissemination of project results (such as best practices to generate seamless 3D models for coastal and marine research and geohazard management practices) and to give demonstration on the effectiveness of VR in improving teaching methods and in increasing awareness on marine and coastal geohazard in the society. Data and products produced by the project will be also used to integrate outreach activities commonly carried out by participants.<< Results >>A pan European project that fosters interdisciplinary cooperation to improve the understanding and teaching of geohazard science is offered by BridgET. Each academic institution has existing postgraduate courses in natural/environmental/marine sciences that include marine geoscience topics, therefore there will be important teaching and learning outcomes form BridgET. A specific project result (which will actually be generated by the sum of all project products and activities) will consist indeed in the design of a new curriculum in marine geohazard assessment and sustainability of coastal regions. In addition, students attending the field activities will be able to accrue learning credits as each of the universities involved has a given amount for credits assigned to field activities. 3 more specific and research oriented project results will instead include the generation of ideal workflows to join offshore and onshore geospatial dataset, which is a practice still not standardized, although data accuracy and reliability is strongly needed to obtain suitable product that can be efficiently used for sustainable management purposes. Project results such as (PR2) ""UAV surveys and methodology for generating shallow water bathymetry"", (PR3) ""guidelines for generating seamless 3D models for coastal environments"" and (PR4) ""Methodology for underwater photogrammetry in deep water"" have been designed to provide best practices that should be adopted as reference document to provide reliable products for coastal management. Interactive learning paths, dataset and toolkit for VR exploration (projecr results PR5, PR6, PR7 and PR8) will finally provide data and products that can be used for a variety of purposes: -The drone and underwater videos and imagery data will be processed to generate a series of virtual reality environments: these will be delivered as packed data files containing VR-ready drone and ROV data, to provide demonstrators for erosion, landslide, active tectonics and volcanic features in both terrestrial and submarine environments. These files can be unpacked (unzipped) on a standard computer and are designed ready for view in 3D virtual reality using headsets. They will constitute a rich database to be used for inclusive teaching purposes that can be shared at academic level and used for dissemination and outreach. - Toolkit will be delivered that allow all students to navigate, map, measure and export features from within the virtual reality using fully immersive headsets and hand-held controllers. The toolkit will allow students to seamlessly switch between onshore and offshore examples of each geohazard to allow them to interact with terrestrial and submarine examples. The tools will allow students to export features (points, lines or polygons) from the VR for further processing or map production in other software such as image analysis or Geographical Information Systems (GIS). - Interactive learning path will be provided to make students experience in VR different, innovative and more inclusive research methods in marine geosciences, in particular, to promote innovative learning environment in marine geosciences, a virtual cruise will be developed using as a start the Norwegian R/V «Helmer Hanssen» owned by the University of Tromsø. The virtual cruise will include content (instrument description, purposes of samplings, data acquisition) in the 360° images and 360° videos of all the decks and laboratories, to build up taylored teaching material for the students. The virtual cruise will be accessible by phones, tablets, desktops, touch screens, big screen TVs, mobile VR headsets, WebVR. Additional virtual environments regarding research tools and lab will be generated using reality-based 3D models and 360° videos produced during the three BridgET summer schools."