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Elevation and visual data from Chang’E-2, Mars Viking, and MOLA were transformed into 3D models and environments using unity and unreal engine to be implemented in augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) applications, respectively. The workflows for the two game development engines and the two purposes overlap, but have significant differences stemming from their intended usage: both are used in educational settings, but while the AR app has to run on basic smartphones that students from all socio-economic backgrounds might have, the VR requires high-end PCs and can therefore make use of respective devices’ potential. Hence, the models for the AR app are reduced to the necessary components and sizes of the highest mountains on Luna and Mars, whereas the VR app contains several models of probe landing sites on Mars, a landscape containing the entire planet at multiple levels of detail and a complex environment. Both applications are enhanced for educational use with annotations and interactive elements. This study focuses on the transfer of scientific data into game development engines for the use in educational settings using the example of scales in extra-terrestrial environments.

Facing global challenges, a qualified education in remote sensing technologies needs to start in school to sensitise teachers and thus young people for ecological issues and develop their technological skills. Remote sensing is part of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curricular topics, all of which are either a requirement for or benefit from remote sensing. However, implementing its data and methods into regular curricula poses technological and educational challenges, given the lack of appropriate school IT infrastructure and remote sensing education for aspiring STEM teachers. Immersive media can overcome these structural issues, using the teachers’ and pupils’ smartphones to display and interact, e.g. with video data, astronaut photographs, or complex hyperspectral data. The data needs to be pre-processed for Augmented and Virtual Reality applications (AR and VR, resp.) to fit topic, available devices and software. Game development software allows for easy integration in apps for AR and VR, but does not contain functions for remote sensing methods. These are either implemented directly in scripts, worked around using less computing-intensive methods or replaced by methods unique to augmented and virtual reality. Following these premises, five AR apps are presented in this report, teaching about tropical cyclones, anthropogenic desertification, energy consumption, gravitation, and algal blooms, all of which use remote sensing data from different sensors aboard the ISS. One VR app teaching about Mount Fuji was developed using a DEM derived from astronaut photographs. All have different levels of interactivity and are embedded in worksheets that fill a double period.