TAMPA, Fla. — Stella is a sixth-grader at Tampa Prep. She is studying the human nervous system.
She isn't using a book or a dusty model, but in full colorful spinning 3D thanks to her bug-eyed virtual reality goggles.
“With a book, you’re just looking,” she says, her surrounding classmates also in the futuristic eyewear. “But with VR, you’re hands-on!”
Tampa Prep embraced VR in a major way, from middle school to high school.
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Students can use the tech for a wide range of subjects, including history, anatomy, architecture, app-building and more.
VR is also being used for therapeutic reasons when students need to chill out.
Teacher Suzy Lassacher says embracing the future now will help all students, not just the tech-minded, in college and beyond.
“The artists, the writers, the business people, the medical people, virtual reality applies to every facet of anything they want to study in college,” says Lassacher.
Junior Ewan Abercrombie’s dream of becoming an architect is being boosted with a virtual portfolio that allows viewers to enter and explore his designs.
“You can even see the house during different parts of the day, how the light comes in,” says Abercrombie.
