The year 7 and 8 students at Christchurch East School donned VR headsets and controllers to be among the first to virtually explore the world's most remote continent.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust officially launched Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Hut virtual reality experience at Government House on Thursday.
While previewing the virtual reality experience at the school before the launch, the trust's executive director Francesca Eathorne said their goal was to encourage the next generation of explorers.
"This is a virtual reality experience of Scott's discovery hut in Antarctica.
"It was the first expedition base ever built at Ross Island.
"So children here today, Christchurch East School, can put on a VR headset and become Antarctic explorers for the morning."
The software was developed by Auckland-based virtual reality tech company StaplesVR.
"Users also have an opportunity to do some of the activities that Scott and his expedition would have done back in 1902," Eathorne said.
"So things like feeding huskies, meeting penguins, preparing for a sledging expedition and even going up in a hydrogen balloon high above the landscape."
The New Zealand-based not-for-profit trust also looks after and maintains three other historic expedition bases and more than 20,000 artefacts left behind by Antarctic explorers, including Carsten Borchgrevink, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary.
"Our first virtual reality experience of Sir Edmund Hillary's Antarctica was really successful.
"But one of the questions that people would ask us is why can't I explore the icy landscape?
"So in this experience, we have built the whole Antarctic landscape so people can go and explore."
Eathorne said the free virtual icy experience will tour New Zealand as part of the trust's education programme. Bookings can be made at https://nzaht.org/
- By Geoff Sloan, made with the support of NZ On Air
