Immersive 3D virtual worlds may be several years away from mainstream adoption, but thousands of scientists, educators, and visionary thinkers are already using these environments to network with colleagues, conduct research, create engaging simulations, and develop instructional models that can reach global audiences. Virtual reality offers the potential to create dynamic content that is either not possible to build in real life, or prohibitively expensive. Travel costs can be reduced by bringing geographically dispersed work groups together to collaborate in real time with a truly immersive feeling of being in the same space.  

Cooperative Extension has been working with virtual worlds for more than two years.This session will provide an overview of the capabilities of multi-user virtual 3D environments, and offer a brief look at a variety of scientific content that exists in the Second Life virtual world. 

Specific ideas about how the precision agriculture community might use the platform will be generated and a working group will be formed to further evaluate and pursue a pilot project.