Port of Corpus Christi's immersive reality learning experience
CommitmentThe Port of Corpus Christi invests in mobile simulation lab to interactively instill STEM learning.
Imagine being a kid and figuring out with your classmates the various factors you have to consider when building a wharf. That’s the immersive reality experience – replete with lights, sounds, and touchscreen walls – that the Port of Corpus Christi has arranged to customize with the not-for-profit Learning Undefeated educational team to deliver to more than 3,500 Texas students to date.
The PORT-able Learning Lab is a mobile shipping container that Learning Undefeated educators take to schools to introduce kindergarten through high school students to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) concepts aligned with their required academic standards through interactive gameplay and team collaboration.
“Learning Undefeated has been doing various kinds of interactive STEM labs for years, but this is the first time these educators have partnered with a port authority to customize this experience to a port authority project,” explains Amy Polasek, the Port of Corpus Christi community relations specialist.
Polasek says most students have their career options broadened. “They always hear that they can become welders or engineers, but this is new information about port industries right near their homes offering so many different opportunities, especially in terms of engineering,” she says.
Many are particularly excited to learn that environmental engineering is a thing and that it is essential when, for example, you are building a dock, which is the embedded project scenario.
Taking environmental aspects – including potential wildlife impacts – into consideration is a key aspect of the exercise. As a certified Green Marine participant, the Port of Corpus Christi considers this inclusion critical to give youth a fuller understanding of a port authority’s everyday challenges.
“It’s so cool when you see the excitement in young students when they realize that if they love math, or are technically oriented, or care deeply about environmental issues, there’s potentially a career for them at the Port of Corpus Christi,” says Rosaura De Los Santos Bailey, the Port of Corpus Christi director of community relations.
Green Marine program manager Thomas Grégoire had a chance to experience the lab while visiting the Port of Corpus Christi earlier this year.
“As soon as I stepped inside the custom-built shipping container, I was immersed in a virtual world that blended the excitement of an escape room with the power of interactive gameplay,” he says.
The unique mashup of the virtual reality and escape room type of games keeps students engaged and motivated throughout the mission sessions.
The lab presents information about the Green Marine program. “The students learn about some of the performance indicators and why it’s important for our port to continue to improve while at the same time finding it challenging to maintain certain performance levels,” Polasek says. “The data entered into the lab simulator helps them to assess their project not only in terms of the wildlife environment, but also community impacts such as noise.”
Each class of 20 to 24 students is split in two for the sessions, with one half starting out in the lab and the other in the classroom before switching places.
The simulator and collaborative discussions inspire them to figure out how they will construct the wharf, mitigate potential risks, handle environmental impacts, and stay within the project’s budget as well as timeline.
The lab typically visits a school for a week – or two for a larger student population.
Taking the mobile lab to schools gives the regular teachers a break. “The educational system has undergone a tremendous amount of strain, particularly since COVID-19,” Polasek notes. “We give teachers a bit of time to catch up lesson-planning or grade papers or just enjoy a quiet lunch, knowing that their students are having fun while meeting the required curriculum objectives.”
Making a positive difference
Under their state-regulated authority, the Port of Corpus Christi Commission may approve allocating up to five percent of the port’s operational revenue earnings in the community to a promotion and development fund. A portion of this year’s total of $5.9 million was designated for the PORT-able Lab school visits. The lab is now in its second full school year after launching in 2021 as a pilot project at summer camps.
“As long as we have the approval of the Port of Corpus Christi commissioners, we will keep moving forward with this project because the students in our community deserve to have access to the best technology, the best educators, and best innovators, and what’s truly going to make a positive difference in the world moving forward,” says De Los Santos Bailey.
When Amy joined our team, I told her, ‘Go big! Come up with something innovative for the education sector because we can allocate a significant portion of our community relations budget.
“I thought Amy would bring me a $10,000 proposal of some kind,” recalls De Los Santos Bailey.
“But she instead returned with something way more elaborate, but the more we looked into its possibilities, the more inspired we became to go big and do this!”
A key consideration was how to fill some of the current learning gaps. “We spoke with representatives from universities, regional colleges, as well as trades schools to find out what students for each of those educational institutions were missing and what would give them the necessary qualifications to succeed in what they set out to do,” De Los Santos Bailey explains.
Diversity and key take aways
Based on her past non-profit work, Polasek sought to create a STEM learning experience that was innovative, exciting and mobile so that it could be taken directly to schools where students might be facing other societal challenges. “I found a few organizations, but particularly liked how Learning Undefeated focuses on under-served communities and gender and race equality.”
Over several months, the Port of Corpus Christi organized brainstorming sessions with various local educators, port authority experts, trade development representatives and key stakeholders to identify what was missing from the existing curriculum or challenging to communicate, and then determine what they felt was important for the students to learn and take away from this STEM learning experience.
“As each of these groups discussed issues and ideas, Learning Undefeated had their experts intently listen to all the information and then map out how science, technology, engineering and math concepts along with the environmental aspects could be integrated into the unique learning experience, which is how we came up with the idea of having students collaborate on building a wharf,” De Los Santos Bailey says.
And we definitely wanted to include our Green Marine participation to make the exercise truly accountable.
De Los Santos Bailey considers the project a wise investment in the future of the Port of Corpus Christi at a time when low unemployment is the North American norm with the baby boomer retirements. “Students are learning that there are potentially good jobs waiting for them at the port when they return from university or college, or complete a trades program,” she says. “It’s also really nice to see that spark in the eyes of girls who realize they can do jobs that were once only held by men.”
Grégoire remains impressed with how the PORT-able Learning Lab leverages immersive technology to create an exciting and effective learning experience. “This program definitely has the potential to inspire countless students to pursue STEM careers and make a real difference in the world,” he says.