New Virtual Reality Centre to Prepare UNLV Students for a High-Tech Future

Ever since its inception, VR has been an obvious tool for education. The ability to transport students to places and into situations that enhance their learning is second to none for this power system; the extent of what VR and its derivatives can deliver are restricted only by the imagination of the developers using it. This has made educational VR big business, and has attracted the attention of major education centers.

Now, schools and universities are setting aside whole areas just for the development and delivery of VR-based lessons, and it is paying off. University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is the latest establishment to invest in bespoke VR areas and is offering students a part in this new way of massed learning.  

UNLV is a progressive university focused on the future, but it only adopts new technologies that enhance the learning experience. From that fundamental perspective, VR offers exactly what they want.

Immersion Helps.

Having trialled the concept of VR lessons and found that the experience helped enhance and cement the learning process, UNLV has now officially opened the Dreamscape Learn Center to promote VR integration.  

Located on the second floor of UNLV’s Lied Library, this impressive 4,000-square-foot facility boasts five unique VR rooms. Visitors are greeted by an expansive welcome centre staffed by a committed student body who are eager to demonstrate what the area can do.  Along with other bespoke programs, there is Alien Zoo Biology software that consists of 18 modules and is designed to supplement basic biology classes. Another program allows teachers to take their students to twelve various sites, such as the Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul, the Oval Office, and even the moon, through virtual reality.

Each of the sixteen positions in the classroom has a pair of HTC Vive virtual reality goggles, allowing the students to access the VR content. Students can experience a virtual reality environment with the use of goggles, augmented with foot and hand sensors in a separate free-roam pod that also features a versatile collaborative area. In this area, students can access a fifteen-minute-long Indiana Jones–style adventure game called Curse of the Lost Pearl, and get the full benefit of the extra features.

Map of the Future. 

The facility at UNLV has attracted a lot of attention from other education providers and looks set to become a blueprint for similar rooms at other universities and even high schools. Aundrea Frahm, director of immersive learning at UNLV, is excited about the potential of the project. She says, “Many of our students, along with myself, have never been to Turkey and may never visit in our lives. But through this technology, we’re able to learn about the history and architecture of the Hagia Sophia almost as if we were there.”  

Frahm, an art professor with over a decade of expertise, formerly established the virtual reality and augmented reality Innovation Studio at Southern Utah University. She was appointed in October 2024 to head the inaugural team responsible for integrating immersive technologies into UNLV and enhancing chances for alternative learning modalities. She is impressed with VR and sees it as a powerful tool for not only learning, but reconnecting with the youth of today. “Today’s students grew up with cell phones and tablets in their hands. And as Generation Alpha rises, many of them will have been exposed to screens from just a few months old. This is a cultural shift in how people grow up and engage with the world—students are used to learning, exploring and engaging through a screen that teaches, shows and speaks to them.”

Since the completion of construction in February, Frahm and her colleagues have engaged over 175 students and professors in utilising the VR technology. This autumn, six other faculty members will incorporate the Dreamscape Learn Centre into their classroom curricula and routinely use it to enhance the learning experience. The hope is that the facility will become a major learning area for the university

UNLV acting executive vice president and provost Kate Hausbeck Korgan is impressed with what she has seen so far. She says, “The future is here, and it is born out of the computer era and the emergence of virtual reality. It’s at this intersection that we need Dreamscape, our tremendous partners in this endeavor, and the promise of digital immersive learning.” She went on to say, “These are not just demonstrations of technology. They’re portals to possibilities for our students, for how they imagine their own future, and how we prepare them to be successful in the high-tech world that they’ll encounter when they leave our university.”

The use of VR in education is now recognised as a powerful and inclusive tool. If you have an idea for a VR construct that you would like help with, why not chat to us at Unity Developers and see how we can turn your dreams into a reality.