Visceral VR: Immersive Human Biology for the Study of Health and Disease

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT: VISCERAL VR Basic nutrition information often comes in the form of bland, abstract words and numbers on a food label – a label many consumers ignore. Lighthaus’s Visceral VR aims to bring nutrition to life by harnessing the power of virtual reality (VR) to pioneer an immersive, interactive approach to teaching the science of nutrition to high school students. With Visceral, students can follow a meal from the first bite to the last molecule, travelling through the digestive system into the small intestine, where they can break the food down into molecular nutrients to explore what’s “healthy” and what isn’t -- and see whether those molecules are delivered to cells for energy or stored as fat. Visceral gives students a gut-level understanding of the relationship between food and health. Lighthaus’s VR-based immersive science and health curricula are designed to engage students in exciting, transformative experiences that challenge them to apply scientific thought and practice to develop theories based on first-hand experimentation in in VR. We believe these embodied experiences in science can inspire a new generation of students to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Our project will evaluate science-based VR curriculum's ability to spark student interest in STEM careers, as well as the effect it has on their retention of health-related knowledge they can use for crucial lifelong diet and nutrition decisions. We will conduct a series of usability and feasibility studies with high school science students, followed by a randomized control trial (RCT) to test the hypothesis that student use of Visceral can have an effect on students’ health and physiology content knowledge, students’ attitudes towards nutrition and diet, and students’ STEM aspirations and self-perceptions as scientists.