Virtual Visits with the New York Hall of Science

The Digital Learning Department would like to introduce ActiveWorlds EDU, a virtual environment designed to foster learning experiences (http://www.activeworlds.com/). In the last decade virtual environments have gone from an experimental platform to a mainstay among societal interactions. Their popularity is a testament to their ability to engage and to do so irrespective of race, gender, age or technological savvy. Along with virtual worlds commercial popularity its application in educational context has concomitantly grown lending innovative methods of delivering content for formal and informal educators alike. A perfect example of this is the Harvard River City project; an ActiveWorlds based virtual universe in which children are given in-world missions and problems to solve in content categories including science, social studies, math, and language arts.

One of the advantages of the ActiveWorlds virtual universe is the freedom to explore concepts in ways that would otherwise prove inaccessible for reason of cost, danger, and distance.  In addition to being a flexible environment, the ActiveWorlds virtual universe was created exclusively for educational activities and monitored to protect users from inappropriate content-a common concern shared by parents and educators. In a protected virtual medium, educators can be daring with the type of content delivered and students can succumb to their natural curiosity for STEM content.

The New York Hall of Science will be taking up citizenship in the CUni educational universe, an ActiveWorlds based virtual universe hosted by Cornell University. The space occupied by the Hall will be used to create a virtual display of exhibits, conceptualized and designed collaboratively by Hall staff and out of school time participants. In addition to delivering STEM content, the project is intended to address the need to prepare the workforce of the future to be effective in an increasingly digital and virtual global market.

To see an ActiveWorlds demo video click here.