South Oak Cliff High School students get a gift that will open new worlds

BY MOLLY SCHRADER

When Ambryia G. stepped into her South Oak Cliff classroom Tuesday for a group project, she had no reason to expect a high-tech experience that would take her out of her world. Ambryia, an aspiring criminal defense attorney, quickly learned that her school was being gifted with Inspirit Virtual Reality headsets from the College Football Playoff Foundation. “It’s very high tech,” she said. “I thought I was in space. Then I jumped from space to Alaska. And I was sitting in a chair the whole time. You know no one’s going to miss class if they have a VR headset because it was really fun.” Her fellow student, Amari W., said he can already picture how the VR headsets will help him practice for his future medical career. “It was an amazing experience. We’ve never had anything like that before. I was just thankful,” he said. “I want to be an anesthesiologist, and I feel like this is going to help me learn about all the different types of cells.” Dallas native and national media personality Rachel Lindsay was on hand to help present the surprise, which also included $1,000 DonorChoose gift cards for five teachers to fund classroom projects and improvements. The innovative VR equipment is meant to revolutionize the learning experience for students – offering immersive, interactive, and 3D educational experiences in both STEM and career education. Inspirit VR’s Chief Revenue Officer Amie Souder said, “They’ll be able to perform chemistry experiments and physics experiments inside the headsets. For example, when they’re learning about the Pythagorean Theorem, they’ll get to go out in the world and use it to measure real objects.” South Oak Cliff Assistant Principal Anais Childress said, “It’s going to change their lives. As we know, this generation of scholars is very visual. They’re used to immersing themselves in visual culture, so to be able to have that in the classroom is incredible. Our teachers are focused on wanting to create a real-world experience for our scholars, and having equipment like this at our fingertips is a game changer.”