State of Play VI: Speakers' Bios

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For more than a year Professor Amme, along with colleagues Zeev Shayer and Jeff Corbin, has been using Second Life to connect with scientists around the world.  The team has been involved with a larger community developing a veritable archipelago of islands dedicated to scientific research and education, aptly dubbed "Scilands."  On Amme and Corbin's island ("The Science School") the team has recreated Olin Hall, a science facility at the University of Denver, as well as DU’s Meyer-Womble Observatory on Mt. Evans.

Amme and his associates have been using this space to develop new ways of conducting educational experiments.  Amme sees virtual worlds as a perfect environment for conducting experiments that would be too dangerous to attempt in real life, such as those involving potentially hazardous substances, such as radioactive material. The potential for development of these tools has peaked the interest of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has awarded Amme and the DU team a $200,000 grant to further this research.

Amme envisions helping students conduct experiments in radioactivity using programs that simulate how the material would actually behave in the physical world. But because it’s all online, there’s no risk to the environment and no risk to students. It also cuts expenses, such as the badges students would wear in real life to monitor exposure to radioactivity.