The Virtual Reality Applied to School Education (VIRION) project aims to enhance the acquisition of skills in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). To accomplish this goal, VIRION has developed immersive virtual reality environments tailored to these disciplines, allowing students to interact and take an active role in their learning. In this project, virtual reality provides an interactive platform for understanding complex concepts, developing practical skills, and fostering critical and creative thinking.
Effective use of virtual reality is known to facilitate knowledge acquisition and boost student motivation, especially when designed as gamified environments that offer engaging and playful learning experiences. The virtual reality tools created by VIRION enable students to interact with educational content designed with these principles in mind, based on pedagogical needs identified through surveys and interviews with European teachers.
VIRION is an action-research project co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. It is being carried out by an international consortium of five entities:
- Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Spain)
- HafenCity Universität Hamburg (Germany)
- Tsar Simeon Veliki Secondary School (Bulgaria)
- LUT University (Finland)
- Premium VR, a Spanish company specializing in virtual reality.
Creating engaging and responsible media literacy projects is a challenge that requires collaboration among institutions, educators, and students. This project was born from that aspiration.