Geography undergraduate students in this project are becoming immersed in the scientific aspects of this discipline through a pedagogic atmosphere of cooperative learning and real-time communication. They engage in active learning through computer-aided instruction offered by a Virtual Communication and Spatial Analysis Laboratory (VC-Sal) program. The VC-Sal project also emphasizes certain major themes. These include animate geography, undergraduate communication and mentoring relationships using cooperative on-line learning, and exposing undergraduates to current professional and scientific applications of geography. There is integration of targeted undergraduate course projects with existing departmental research, and it is expected that the project will spur non-majors to attain an understanding of the basic principles and methods of science.
