Sectors · K-12 & Community Learning
Walk inside your own science unit. See it, move it, try it again.
The lab comes to the school, so every student can walk inside the science. Training is built around the lesson your teachers already teach.
What you get
- Built on your unitYour teachers choose the science unit, and the visit is built around it.
- No building to equipThe truck parks on site. No class has to travel and no lab has to be built.
- A shared 3D roomA whole class sees the same scene at the same time and can talk about it together.
- Replay, slow down, change one thingA live demonstration happens once. A simulation can be repeated as often as the class needs.
- Access for everyoneEvery visit offers instructor support, clear assessments and an accessible option for anyone who cannot use 3D glasses.
Deep Dive
For grant officers and engineers.
SP-01 · K-12 education and mobile STEAM outreachHow a school visit works
Steps
- The teacher names the lesson: the science unit to bring to life and the part students find hardest.
- The Mobile CAVE drives to the school. Students put shoe covers over their shoes and put on 3D glasses.
- Inside, the images surround the group on the walls and floor. Students move, point and change the scene.
- A guide replays the key moment and asks why it happened. Students run it again.
Who it serves
- Middle school science students
- Elementary and high school classes
- Working science teachers and teacher candidates
- Rural and under-resourced schools
- Families and communities, through STEM nights and community visits
XR Jags projectSURADD: the program behind it
What it is
Southern University Reaching Across the Digital Divide (SURADD), funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), equips K-12 students, teachers and faculty with VR simulations and mobile CAVE labs.
Reported outcomes (from the student team)
- 200+ VR headsets deployed across classrooms within a 15-mile radius of SUBR, for 200+ middle school students annually.
- Mobile VR systems to extend immersive STEM learning into remote rural communities.
- A 20% increase in STEM interest among participating middle school students.
- 150+ teachers and faculty trained in VR/AR-based STEM instruction.
- 4 reusable, standards-aligned VR science modules in middle school STEM curricula.
For grant officersWhat the research says
Evidence cited in the deep dive
- A 2022 meta-analysis of 48 experimental studies (Educational Research Review) found immersive VR had a positive effect on learning outcomes, larger in K-12 (g = 0.61) than in higher education (g = 0.31), and a positive effect for CAVE systems.
- Each visit is tied to a named unit and a debrief. Practice time in the simulation is recorded separately from skills an instructor has checked, and only totals are reported publicly.
Louisiana need cited in the deep dive
- More than a third of Louisiana's population, about 1.7 million people, lacked broadband access in late 2023 (PBS NewsHour). A truck that needs no download and no home connection reaches those students directly.
TechnicalFor engineers: headsets and the CAVE together
Build
- Headsets give each student a personal lesson; the CAVE gives a class one shared room.
- Through SURADD, Meta headsets carry six middle school STEM and science lessons, and ClassVR headsets give access to a library of K-12 lessons and travel in ClassVR carts.
- Lessons built in the XR Development Studio use Unity and OpenXR, so content can move between headsets and the Mobile CAVE.
Sources: the AM Lab deep dive “K-12 education and mobile STEAM outreach”, the suvrjags.org SURADD write-up and Immersion in Motion for schools and colleges.