Education Commons^™

Teaching How To Recycle Through The Medium Of Virtual Reality, Nathan Kassai

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

Students, especially children in elementary and middle school, have difficulty focusing and or absorbing information from their courses. The problem lies in the scarcity of hands-on/interactive elements in classrooms as most lectures contain topics most students would be interested in but are presented in a monotonous way. To properly educate and inspire students to work on improving their academic knowledge, alternative educational mediums must be sought. Such mediums like Virtual and Augmented Reality allow students to interact with virtual objects to learn more about a wide variety of subjects, hence increasing their engagement and enjoyment in any particular topic. The …

Toward Building Science Literacy, Kathryn Rafferty

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Reading scientific literature is a critical science competency that proves difficult to “teach.” Students enter our classes with varying science vocabularies, and many suffer imposter syndrome when reading technical reports because they do not yet identify as capable scientists. The “Science Literacy” assignment guides students to develop and expand strategies to read science articles. Over the semester, students read 5 to 6 articles ranging from peer-reviewed manuscripts to popular science magazines to science blogs about sequencing Ozzy Osbourne's DNA. In Canvas Discussion boards, they a guiding set of questions and then respond to their peers. This assignment is a low-stakes …

A Stillness In The Desert? Engaging The Public Through An Immersive Exploration Of Southwest Soundscapes, Julian Kilker, Thomas Bjelic

Creative Collaborations

The pandemic highlighted the anthropocentric nature of soundscapes, while the recent popularity of electric cars, quadcopters, and “noise cancellation” earbuds demonstrated how consumer products can rapidly change our awareness of sound. While light pollution is already extensively addressed in scholarly research, popular works such as The End of Night, and public engagement such as The International Dark Sky Association, the complex interplay of sound, natural resources, and public engagement is still emerging, particularly in creative fields.

Two UNLV scholars and artists are collaborating on this project: Julian Kilker, who specializes in visual and emerging technology research, and Tom Bjelic, who …