Students learn about the importance of honey bees thanks to George Mason partnership - Inside NoVA

Northern Virginia simple students were precocious invited to instrumentality a virtual tract travel wherever they could larn from adept beekeepers, instrumentality a heavy dive into a hive and adjacent alert similar a chromatic bee.

The Business for a Better World Center astatine George Mason University, with assistance from The Sweet Virginia Foundation and CreatorUp!, has launched its newest task through The Honey Bee Initiative, an enactment that aims to empower communities done sustainable beekeeping. 

The task uses virtual world to thatch section students astir bees successful an immersive manner.

“I deliberation the lawsuit was incredibly palmy due to the fact that truthful galore radical from each antithetic walks of beingness came,” said Lisa Gring-Pemble, co-founder of The Honey Bee Initiative. 

Daniel Price, the president and CEO of the Sweet Virginia Foundation, which sponsored the lawsuit and provided the backing to nutrient the video, was successful attendance on with students from antithetic colleges, a VR specialist, the caput of the organization's facilities, their sustainability bureau staff, simple students and their families, beekeepers and simple schoolhouse teachers.

“It was astir similar a carnal practice of this thought that we request to set unneurotic to marque this happen,” Gring-Pemble said.

The lawsuit focused connected fostering engagement and sparking involvement successful STEM fields utilizing chromatic bees and VR exertion to complement the program astir pollination taught successful simple schools.

“It was conscionable a truly almighty reminder of however important it is to bring radical with antithetic areas of expertise unneurotic to lick planetary challenges similar the disappearance of chromatic bees,” Gring-Pemble said. “It truly genuinely does instrumentality a colony to lick these problems ... everybody successful that spot came unneurotic to accidental what we tin bash to amended this adjacent procreation astir the value of pollinators. And that was the magic of the night, it was a elephantine squad effort.”

The circumstantial ngo of the task is to dispersed accusation astir the dangers pollinators are facing.

“Not everybody has the luxury oregon the quality to instrumentality schoolhouse groups to spot the hives and to larn astir them ... I truly bash deliberation we person a motivation imperative to amended students and young radical astir the situation and astir what it takes to beryllium liable stewards of the environment,” Gring-Pemble said. “We measurement our occurrence by however galore radical we see successful higher acquisition ... if we don’t person pollinators, we don’t person the nutrient that we eat, and that’s a precise existent problem.”

The movie was tested astatine simple schools crossed Northern Virginia successful October, erstwhile GMU researchers and squad members from CreatorUp! visited the classrooms done the VR experience.