Great White Sharks in the Classroom? VR Makes it Possible
Curiscope developer and CEO Ed Barton consulted with real marine scientists to create the VR experience Shark Week: Operation Apex. The depiction of sharks is respectful, educational, and awe-inspiring.
By Peyton Lee, foundry10
Many of the shark-related VR experiences I’ve tried have failed to make sharks into a learning experience, relying heavily on traditional narratives of sharks as mindless monsters and killers from the deep. I went into this experience expecting to see more of the same.
Instead, Shark Week: Operation Apex subverted these tropes entirely and created one of my favorite educational experiences for VR.
Shark Week: Operation Apex is a VR experience developed by Curiscope in partnership with Discovery: Shark Week. Players take on the role of a research scientist, and, when the cables of your research rig are mysteriously attacked, find themselves following the trail of the largest Great White Shark ever seen.
While working for foundry10, an education research organization, I had the opportunity to review Shark Week: Operation Apex and interview the developers behind it, with a focus on its backing in science and usability in classrooms.
In Operation Apex, players explore three different ecosystems, swimming freely through kelp forests and open waters. Using an equipped scanner, players can scan schools of fish, crabs, and other creatures to learn more about their behavior. Scanned species can then be replicated as holographic mimics, which are used to lure in larger, more elusive species like leopard sharks, tuna, and eventually, the fabled great white shark. These holograms also give information about organism health, which is central to the game’s progression.
From the very beginning, players are introduced to the world of Operation Apex as scientific researchers, piloting a drone to solve marine science mysteries. Each area of the game features a central question, requiring players to piece together clues to uncover the underlying cause. For example in the first area, Echo Grove, players are tasked with uncovering why a sudden surge in abalone populations is destroying kelp beds. By investigating the health of abalone predators, players find that pollution from pesticides is harming the sea bass that normally keep abalone populations low. This showcases how human activity can impact entire ecosystems and is just one of the science-based messages that Operation Apex seeks to communicate through its science-centric narrative.
“I think that’s something really, really important to note about the whole experience,” said Ed Barton, co-founder and CEO of Curiscope, in an interview.
Curiscope’s first foray into VR and AR was through a YouTube 360 video centered around great white sharks (Great White Sharks 360), and they have since come full-circle with Operation Apex. I had the opportunity to speak directly with Barton about how they approached the challenges inherent to building experiences about sharks.
“We just felt like sharks in many ways are very misunderstood creatures. They’re very heavily demonized, and we thought that there was an opportunity to offer people an experience in the oceans. Most people never, ever get an opportunity to go scuba diving; could we offer something in VR that was really immersive, really detailed, really explorative… that really went well-beyond a 90-second YouTube experience to … [a] playable game?”
“We worked with an organization called Oceans Research that’s based out in Mossel Bay in South Africa, and actually got the great opportunity to go out there and meet with Enrico, who was one of our key advisors… I think that was really the core thing that guided how we wanted to present sharks. Because, when you talk to someone like Enrico, they don’t see sharks as these scary creatures that pop out of nowhere, but they really see them as… predators inside of an ecosystem, and quite frankly most of the time their interactions with humans are completely insignificant. They’re not these horrible creatures that attack from the deep!”
The portrayal of sharks throughout Shark Week: Operation Apex is scientific, respectful, and, at times, awe-inspiring:
I float up off the continental shelf into the murky, endless blue. A marker on my ever-present radar pings above me, urging me further upward into the open water. I tense as I watch the familiar terrain disappear beneath me, leaving me in an empty blue expanse. As a massive shape looms ever-closer, I hold my breath reflexively, before releasing it in awe as a massive whale shark swims gracefully into view. It opens up its mouth to inhale clouds of plankton as I fire up my scanner and trace a line along its body. It’s far from the warm waters it’s normally found in, the readings tell me, but armed with this new data we can track it and ensure its safety on the long journey home.
The game shies away from building tension through jump-scares or ominous shark predation but instead builds excitement about sharks and their roles in ecosystems. The game provides a brief look at the huge diversity of sharks in our oceans, from leopard sharks to whale sharks, but also focuses on the food webs that support these predators. Creatures like abalone, red rock crabs, and sardines also play key roles in the experience, and understanding the relationships between them is, according to Barton, one of the major focuses of the game.
“I think the food chain is a really big thing for us in this product. It was built around [starting] with leopard sharks, you start with small fish, and you work your way up. And at the same time you learn about how plastic comes in, is fed on by the bottom feeders, and they get fed on by the bigger predators, and so on. And eventually, it works its way up to the tuna fish that the sharks eat, or even the tuna fish that people eat, and that’s how plastic gets into our food. I think that was one of the really interesting things to explore.”
Bioaccumulation of plastic in the food chain is only one of many marine conservation issues that Operation Apex tackles. It uses VR as a platform to share with players the impact that shark finning, plastic pollution, and derelict nets can have on our marine environment and uses these as central plot points to drive the narrative forward.
“And all these top-level ‘plot points’ weren’t led by us; they were led by what is actually an issue in the real world. And I think one of the really fascinating things from running Curiscope is just how active and how interested a lot of scientists are [in getting] involved,” said Barton.
“…I think if you’re creating educational experiences they have to be really guided by facts and people who know the subject better than anybody else. Which, quite frankly, is not going to be me, or my studio. It’s going to be people that dive with sharks every single day… We can’t assume to be experts in everything. I think that’s very important whenever you’re creating educationally-focused content.”
Curiscope and Shark Week: Operation Apex stand as a model for how to develop educational content, whether for virtual reality or other platforms. By working closely with educators and professionals to identify educational needs, they’ve created an experience that takes a fresh approach to sharks and the marine environment. Operation Apex presents a nuanced approach to marine conservation, taking steps to overcome the deep-seated stigma against sharks.
But ultimately, said Barton, “the main objective, really, is to explore a new environment and view it differently. I think that’s always how we want to view Curiscope experiences. They provide a different lens on the world. I’d like people who are experiencing it to view marine conservation differently, to view marine biology differently, but also to have fun doing it.”
Peyton Lee first joined foundry10 in 2017 as a summer intern developing Bycatch-22, a VR experience addressing fishery bycatch, and continued to be involved through the Short Run comic workshop.He served as one of foundry10’s VR testers, reviewing VR content for classroom use, and now works as the Marine Team intern refining Bycatch-22. Between studying for his majors in Computer Science and Marine Science, Peyton enjoys running his Etsy shop, video games, and building underwater robots.
