Heritage education is a key approach to preserving and transmitting a community’s history and culture embedded in its collective memory, fostering social cohesion, and cultivating a sense of identity among different populations. Bridging the gap between historical narratives and contemporary audiences is central to promoting educational outcomes. In recent years, rapid advances in digital technologies have provided unprecedented opportunities for the preservation, inheritance, and dissemination of cultural heritage. Virtual reality (VR), with its ability to create three-dimensional representations of real or imagined locations, provides a compelling sense of realism, illustrating its potential for various applications in cultural heritage preservation, such as 3D historical reconstruction, enhanced tourism engagement, gamified learning, and pedagogical cultural heritage programs. This mini-review focuses on VR-enhanced heritage education, a field that involves transdisciplinary studies on the dynamics of user engagement and virtual experiences tailored for cultural heritage education. The aim of this mini-review is to investigate the current status, identify limitations, and outline prospective design considerations for integrating VR technology into heritage education. In this study, we will provide insights into future design considerations for designers, developers, and educators in order to create better heritage education experiences, contributing to developing interactive approaches to heritage education.

Various progressive rural renewal programs have been launched in China over the past two decades. What does the future of rural areas and regions look like in China’s Yangtze River Delta Region, and what can we learn from these for other situations such as in the Northern Netherlands? Our aim is to find a new perspective for more sustainable spatial development. By walking we try to discover a new vision for the future developments of towns and countryside, especially in exurban areas at a medium distance from urban conurbations. Instead of only plowing through archives, this research is methodically based on “walking” in which not only the case is physically experienced intensely, but also a discussion is held with as many different people as possible. While walking there is time to see and discuss things from different perspectives. By walking we expect to discover hidden values in the countryside near metropolitan regions. “Walking through the landscape” is also a metaphor, with an assumption that by deliberate slowing down, we can find sustainable alternatives, as opposed to overconsumption and depletion of the planet.