Collaborative Research: Virtual Laboratory for Engineering and Applied Sciences Education (EASE)

该项目正在创建一套虚拟现实实验，将使K-12和大学生以及公众接触材料研究中使用的实验室设备。一些实验室设备可能非常昂贵或笨重，某些实验非常耗时。 这种虚拟现实方法使世界各地更多的人能够以很少或免费的成本获得技术设备，以了解工程和材料科学，包括参观博物馆的游客和没有这种设备的学校的学生。这些模块是三维的，完全互动，以帮助吸引更多的学生从事工程职业。研究人员正在研究学生如何使用这些虚拟现实模块进行学习，这将有助于其他人在未来为其他科目开发更好的虚拟现实教育工具。通过NSF国际科学与工程办公室的资助，与巴西一所大学的合作使这些模块能够根据有助于扩大科学和工程参与的主题进行翻译和开发。

This project is creating a set of virtual reality experiments that will expose K-12 and college students, as well as the public, to laboratory equipment used in the study of materials. Some laboratory equipment can be quite expensive or cumbersome and certain experiments are time-consuming. This virtual reality approach is making technical equipment accessible at little or no cost to many more people around the world to learn about engineering and materials science, including visitors to museums and students at schools which do not own this equipment. The modules are 3-D and fully interactive to help attract more students to engineering careers. Researchers are studying how students learn from using these virtual reality modules, which will help others develop better virtual reality educational tools for other subjects in the future. Collaboration with a university in Brazil, funded through NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering, is allowing the modules to be translated and developed based on topics that will help broaden participation in science and engineering.