Virtual dissection cuts gross factor

SALEM – I am a lifelong vegetarian, so one could imagine my horror when I was told to dissect a frog in middle school.

A dead frog?

I was mortified. Though I loved science and knew it would be an interesting experience, I went to school that fateful day with hesitancy and sweaty palms.

I did what I needed to do but I went home sad for the frogs.

A few years later, people began talking about virtual reality technology that would allow students to dissect frogs, among many other things, on a computer.

This technology is now making its way into classrooms, and may be coming to Salem-Keizer schools soon. I used it to “dissect” animals.

A California-based technology company, zSpace, visited Salem to inform local education leaders of a new opportunity for their students.

Gary Murphy, a consultant for zSpace, gave a presentation to about 14 education leaders from Oregon, after which the participants had the chance to experiment with the technology.

I put on the lightweight gray and black 3-D glasses and picked up the stylus, which is about as small as an ordinary pen but with buttons on it, and started exploring.

It’s strange using a stylus that doesn’t have to touch the screen. The stylus transmits information wirelessly, and I could select which animals, organs, dinosaurs – you name it – I wanted to dissect out of dozens of options. And that was just one program.

In another, I could have messed with the laws of physics or created electrical circuits.

To look inside animals, I peeled back fur, skin and muscles from the dog to see its skeleton. I enlarged organs to see what they looked like up close.

The human heart I dissected was colorful, pulsing. I could explore the veins, see where the blood was going.

ZSpace provides various virtual reality tools such as augmented glasses, fully immersive goggles, virtual reality CAVEs (cave automatic virtual environments), and desktop virtual reality simulators. The desktops, Murphy said, are the best for collaboration, as the glasses and goggles, for instance, are used individually.

ZSpace technology is available in more than 250 schools across the country, in both K-12 and higher education institutions, and in more than 12 countries.

Many schools create virtual reality labs, which vary by school in size and structure, but usually consist of at least one virtual reality desktop that multiple students can use at once and more groups can use throughout different classes.

The price of these tools and the programs that accompany them varies, but they tend to range between one $250 payment for one system to $650 per system per year.