Glendale Community College Adopts Dreamscape's VR Technology for Immersive STEM Education

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Published: November 09, 2023 at 3:58 am Updated: November 09, 2023 at 3:59 am

Edited and fact-checked:
November 09, 2023 at 3:58 am

In Brief

Glendale Community College (GCC) will develop a Virtual Reality Center with edtech firm Dreamscape Learn, to offer students science courses with VR-enabled education.

US-based Glendale Community College (GCC) recently selected edtech firm Dreamscape Learn to set up a Virtual Reality Center, to offer students introductory science courses with VR-enabled instruction.

Backed by a substantial $4.5 million grant secured by Senator Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank) to fund a five-year pilot program to demonstrate the use and benefits of virtual reality in science classes, general creativity, and immersive education.

According to the college, it will be the country’s first community college to offer introductory science courses that incorporate VR-enabled instruction.

“For integrating VR into our curriculum, Dreamscape Learn offers fully integrated courseware for use in the classroom,” GCC’s president, Dr Ryan Corner told Metaverse Post. “This is currently being used by over 10,000 students at ASU for introductory Biology through the Alien Zoo. There are future offerings in development in Chemistry, Physics and the Humanities.”

“GCC will be adopting the use of the Immersive Classroom, which will allow faculty to collaborate and develop content through a provided software development kit (SDK). Through this, we can utilize VR tools for any discipline and are only limited by our own imaginations. The platform can transport students to new places, unreachable and support student learning through engagement in the content,” Corner added.

The college will extend the benefits of immersive learning by enabling dual-enrollment students from local high schools to participate in the courses that will incorporate Dreamscape Learn courseware.

According to GCC, the decision comes based on research at Arizona State University (ASU). Since 2022, over 12,000 ASU students have taken the introductory biology lab that incorporates Dreamscape Learn’s “Alien Zoo” curriculum, which situates students as field biologists within a virtual environment.

Students who participated in the lab, dissecting its fictional creatures and studying their behaviors and habitats, were twice as likely to earn an A on assignments when compared with their peers who participated in a traditional wet lab setting, it added.

GCC’s Virtual Reality Center to Open in 2024

Scheduled to open in 2024, the Virtual Reality Center will be located on GCC’s Verdugo Campus between the college’s renowned Planetarium and a new 116-thousand-square-foot science building. The three buildings form an “innovation alley” offering GCC students a cutting-edge in-person learning experience.

“The new science building will house more than 20 advanced labs, including research labs that offer research experiences usually reserved for upper division and graduate students,” Corner told Metaverse Post. “The VR center will create an innovation alley connecting our science footprint in a manner that represents our commitment to high-level teaching and the provision of experiences that students can’t find anywhere else.”

GCC students will use Dreamscape’s immersive biology lab curriculum to act as biologists solving real-life science problems in a complex world of novel creatures and ecosystems, and the college will have access to the Dreamscape Learn tools for building new immersive environments in important academic programs including architecture, history, and other disciplines.

GCC also plans to provide high-quality courses designed by Dreamscape and Arizona State University in Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy and Humanities — while providing faculty with the opportunity to design their own virtual experiences in the Immersive Classroom.

“The center will have a full haptic free-roam VR pod for a walk-through experience, in addition to a 32-student seated VR lab, and an immersive classroom faculty motion capture space,” Corner explained. “In this facility, the college will introduce students to VR and STEM fields, provide VR educational experiences to more than 3,000 k-8 students served in our Science Outreach Program, and provide an opportunity to partner with Glendale Unified School District to equitize technology access and bring VR into the high school experience.”

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