Thinking outside of the box award

T+D, July, 2003

Systems engineering company Veridian was used to working with the intelligence community, the U.S. Department of Defense, and other U.S. government agencies--not with elementary schools. But several years ago, the company received a federal grant to use the virtual reality technology it usually applies to tank or military flight simulators to help educate children who are hearing impaired.

The Virtual Reality Education for Assisted Learning system helps children with severe hearing impairment learn abstract concepts often lost without sound. A three-dimensional virtual world made up of a post office, police and fire stations, a farm, a greenhouse, and a coastline (a hospital and planetarium are under construction) teaches children such important life skills as looking both ways before crossing a street, not talking to strangers, reading charts, and more.

The system debuted in Orlando, Florida, and is now running in other Florida elementary schools as well as schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. Veridian hopes to expand the program to higher grades. Says one school's lab instructor about the Veridian engineers, "They're all teachers at heart."

Source/Orlando Business Journal