SoftWorthy's Interactive Virtual Environment Laboratory to support Health and Safety Training of Emergency Responders Exposed to Extreme Ambient Temperatures (SWIVEL-HASTE)

Extreme weather events and intense heat waves are already impacting human health, and will continue to exacerbate existing environmental and health concerns. As the frequency and severity of such incidences increase, there is a need to provide adequate training to emergency responders. In this regard, ‘virtualization’ of the learning process offers significant benefits while providing safety training to such workers. Specifically, a simulation-based framework that supports learning experiences through different pedagogical models (e.g. ‘project-based’ and ‘problem-based’) can enhance knowledge retention and promote self-efficacy, with a focus on ‘learning while doing’, rather than on ‘learning then doing’. The approach provides exposure to experiences moving from ‘learning about practical application’, to ‘learning for practical application’ to ‘learning through practical application’. Therefore, the proposed project aims to develop an innovative simulator that employs ‘serious-gaming’ techniques to introduce health and safety concepts associated with exposure to extreme ambient temperatures, within the context of a real-time, virtual environment. The system would deliver a unique combination of thermoregulatory models, graphical human and environment representations, and interactive control, in conjunction with multimedia visualization techniques. The intuitive, accurate safety training tool would serve as an interface that facilitates creation of personalized scenarios for the real-time study of practical concepts associated with heat and cold stress in an enriched, virtual world. The project aims to improve comprehension of actual, individual-focused health risks from working in hazardous thermal environments, through an interactive, customizable simulator that adopts a practice-oriented framework for content delivery, and enables a cognitively engaging approach to learning. The software will employ artificial intelligence techniques for modular, adaptive instruction as well as real-time, dynamic assessment to support personalized education and training. The simulator will leverage open-source gaming technology and the content would be aligned with NHES, to ensure that safety related knowledge is easily accessible and interesting to trainees in various emergency response roles & associated workplace settings. The prototype, implemented by including potential stakeholders during development through a participatory design process that focuses on engagement aspects (such as immersion, control, challenge, purpose and interest), would adopt concepts from educational psychology to effectively deliver safety content. The user-based assessment of simulator effectiveness, based on P-III Framework, would also be conducted, by utilizing validated evaluation instruments (e.g. GEQ). Thus, the digital technology would offer a novel educational & training experience to develop a deeper understanding of health effects of exposure to extreme ambient temperatures, via a gamified approach that is scalable, yet cost-effective. The platform would provide exciting and relevant health & safety content through customizable learning modules and a gaming interface, and therefore, support the safety training of emergency responders.