“Technology has caught up with what people used to think about, and we can now build an emotionally driven learning experience to teach really complicated subjects.” — M I C H A E L M . C R O W, ASU PRESIDENT million users by 2025, but so did content creation for VR. “Storytellers can make anything come to life, but in science, you have to be accurate,” says Crow. That’s where Michael Angilletta comes in. Angilletta is an evolutionary biologist who leans more toward Bill Nye, the Science Guy, than a college professor. Angilletta is passionate about biology and the possibilities VR can bring to students. In 2017, he helped create ASU’s first digital biology courses and never imagined he would work with Hollywood storytellers to create a VR curriculum. Now, Angilletta alongside Parkes and his team are collaboratively creating the science VR storyline and curriculum for the university’s first immersive biology class experience. “The goal is for students to learn to think like biologists and solve problems, and VR is the hook to make this happen,” Angilletta 5 2 W I N T E R 2 0 2 1
Lauren Gold, a graduate student working on Dreamscape Learn, is also involved with another VR project involving Mars.
says. “The biology curriculum will encourage them to master the same skills and the same knowledge to solve similar problems on Earth. We want to raise students’ critical thinking skills by immersing them in this world.” Angilletta believes the only way to get students engaged in using critical thinking skills is to create exciting novel problems they can solve. “We have to provide learning goals and a pathway to achieve those goals, plus tell a good story,” he says. “My focus is to create
engaging, emotional storytelling and realistic biology.” Back to learning by doing Angilletta says that developing the first of 12 modules of biology curriculum with the studio’s storytellers was a constant back and forth between what would make a cool story versus what’s grounded in science and engaging in VR. “What makes virtual reality training so engrossing and effective is the immersive nature of the experience, which simulates a