"I can take the kids to the great pyramids of Egypt. I can take them back in time, and we can stand in the Coliseum before it got destroyed. I can take them and go inside a human heart and navigate the channels and things. I can go and we can stand on the moon," said library media specialist Jennifer Vinz.
Vinz and social studies teacher Jennifer Bowser applied for a Beaver Dam Area Community Foundation Education Fund grant for the ClassVR equipment and software. The Education Fund grant provided $2,500, and the Heffron Family Fund also donated $2,500, Vinz said.
"Without the grant funds this project would have been difficult to achieve," Vinz said. "We are so appreciative of the individuals who selected our project."
The common school fund was used to purchase a set of 30 pairs of virtual reality goggles. "This allows the staff to check out the cart to use with a whole class," Vinz said.
Bowser said that VR headsets allow the students to experience places they otherwise would not be able to access. Teachers can use their Chromebooks to control where students go with the headsets. Joy sticks for the headset allow students to navigate in the environment. A charging station disinfects the headsets.
"If I would take the kids to prehistory and want them to navigate the old Stone Age, they can get dropped in there," Bowser said. "While they are wearing their headsets, they can navigate around and walk around. They can go into a cave and touch things and move things around. It's not only looking at it. It is experiencing it. We also have speakers on here so with underground sea diving, they can hear the shark coming closer and the water and the waves."
Cubes are used to help the students look at 3D models of things, Bowser said.
"The program will make something like a sphere and they put the cube underneath it and it attaches and they can manipulate it," Bowser said. "We can't give them the experience of looking at a human heart in real life, but with this we can make it where they can actually experience it."
Already, a Spanish class has virtually experienced Mexico, and a flight space class went to Mars after experiencing a space shuttle launch, Bowser said.
"A science class is going to look at the human cells and the different parts, and with the joy sticks they can navigate the different interactions and how the parts of the cell interact together," Bowser said.
"For social studies purposes, they are doing ancient civilizations in sixth grade and (will be) able to show them the Acropolis or the pyramids in Egypt," Vinz said. Those kind of experiences that they may not get to do in in their life is pretty cool."
The teachers were trained a couple of weeks ago, and any class in the school can sign up to use the equipment. There a many different programs that were paid for by the community grant program, Bowser said.
Students have found some favorite programs, Bowser said.
"They love doing the underwater dive, and they loved it with one where they were flying over a hot air balloon, and they could fly up and see how it was working and look down and see the mountain range," Bowser said.
"What is beneficial for this set is I get to control and navigate for the kids. I made the playlist. I can touch something on my screen and make the kids look at something. It is a better structure for guiding the kids through the activities."
The offerings range from scenes to movies to interactive programs, Bowser said.
"We wanted to get the whole set" of 30 pairs of virtual reality goggles, Vinz said, to allow entire classes to work together.
The program has been life changing in the school, Bowser said.
"We can't go and sit on top of Mount Everest, but we have a playlist of that where you can look around and hear the wind and kind of get sense of how it would be like to be on top of Mount Everest, which is just exciting," Bowser said.
The Beaver Dam Area Community Foundation Education Fund is designed to help teachers and school leaders launch special projects and learning opportunities throughout the Beaver Dam Unified School District.
For additional information about the Beaver Dam Area Community Foundation or to donate, visit beaverdamacf.com. Please notate BDUSD Education Fund when making a donation.
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