*** 9627334 Novotny Through the application of advanced technology, the Virtual Reality Education project will aid in the development of critical thinking, and self-assessment skills in the areas of mathematics, and science in students. In six weeks the students. In six weeks the students will discover and experience Virtual Reality first-hand, while also learning about its relation to many different forms of math and science. As the students progress, their ability to not only comprehend,but visualize, and apply a variety of mathematical concepts will vastly improve. Their understanding about physics, algebra, logic, geometry, and (for the more advanced) calculus, will be put to the test as they are asked to complete a packet of Virtual worlds which contain applications of those fields of maths and science. Students who complete the packet early enough will be allowed to develop their own Virtual worlds in which other applications of math and science will be demonstrated. All the results from each six week course will be placed on a special web-page on San Jose High Academys' home-page. This will allow for a quick dissemination of the results, aiding in the development of other educational VR projects. This, then, would make the VRE project one that has a global impact, as it would be accessible to the entire world via the World Wide Web. The potential of Virtual Reality is so immense that its incorporation into our society is an inevitable fact. The educational value of this technology lies within its ability to train students to visualize what would otherwise be vague concepts. As visualization is 90% of the comprehension process, Virtual Reality can easily be described as one of the most advanced forms of teaching. By being a pioneer project, VRE is demonstrating the strength of this new technology at a high-school level. This demonstration will become a reference point for every educationally based Virtual Reality project in the future. The impact on the current system of education, a nd indeed on our own understanding of how to educate, will be immeasurable. ***
