SOLANA BEACH (NEWS 8) – A different type of school bus rolled into parking lots in the Solana Beach School District this week as students climbed on board into a unique environment for learning – virtual reality.
Wearing 3D glasses, and with the simple flick of stylus, elementary school students in Solana Beach were able to experience a virtual world – manipulating organs like a beating heart and watching all kinds of animals come to life.
The mobile zSpace Lab, inside a big blue bus, takes students on an exciting journey by using virtual reality to teach real life lessons.
Lessons that engage students and show them there is more than one way, for example, to skin a snake.
zSpace encourages fearless learning by allowing students to explore by trying and doing – with no worries of breaking materials, spilling chemicals, or making the wrong move.
“The objects behave as if they are real. Students can turn them over, look above them, look under them, dissect them, and take them apart. For example, we electrical circuit boards so if they use too much electricity, the light bulb will actually explode,” said Amie Souder with zSpace.
zSpace said hundreds of K-12 school districts, universities and even medical schools are in incorporating its virtual reality program into their lesson plans