Envision Center available to collaborate with faculty on virtual instruction

As Purdue faculty continue teaching remotely, ITaP’s Envision Center can provide a way to deliver the kinds of hands-on, laboratory-based instruction students typically can’t get through online lectures.

The Envision Center, which celebrated its fifteenth anniversary in 2019, uses the latest technology to create virtual reality and data visualization tools for research and educational use, and the center already has collaborated with faculty in 36 different academic departments.

The center has worked with faculty partners to develop a number of applications that give students hands-on experience, including the first virtual cleanroom for training pharmacy students, an insect dissection virtual reality application, and a virtual environment for visualizing supernova remnants in three dimensions.

Last year, the center collaborated with five schools in the College of Engineering on an Instructional Innovation Grant, a $100,000 award to create virtual labs for engineering students. Some of those labs, including an Aerospace Structural Analysis lab designed to teach students about how different materials behave under stress, have already been built, with more in the pipeline.

"Our virtual instructional applications allow students to experience and explore laboratory materials, equipment and procedures remotely by simulating the key interactions and learning objectives of the real lab," says George Takahashi, the center’s technical director.

A video highlighting recent Envision Center projects, including the College of Engineering labs, can be viewed here.

Writer:  Adrienne Miller, science and technology writer, Information Technology at Purdue (ITaP), 765-496-8204, mill2027@purdue.edu.

Last updated: April 27, 2020