Students in science and engineering are getting more practice at making ethical, science-related decisions due to a new project called SciEthics Interactive.

“SciEthics Interactive is a virtual 3D world. A virtual 3D world is a place where students can do things that they would never normally be able to do in real life. … This is all done through a computer interface,” said Larysa Nadolny, assistant professor in the School of Education and team member, whose primary goal is to design the simulation.

SciEthics is meant to raise ethical awareness through technology. 

“The goal of SciEthics is to promote and to integrate the learning of science content and the raising of ethical awareness in science practices through the use of engaging technology,” said Matthew Pierlott, co-principal investigator and associate professor of philosophy at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.

SciEthics Interactive is based off of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. With grants such as this one, there is a principal investigator who is in charge of the project.

Joan Woolfrey is the principal investigator of the project and the two co-principal investigators are Pierlott and Seth Kahn. All are faculty members in the Department of Philosophy at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.

Nadolny played an important role in creating the virtual environment with the help of computer science students and a graphic design student. It all started with Second Life, a virtual world online, Nadolny said. Nadolny and her team used an open source version of Second Life called OpenSim.

“In OpenSim, all you have is ocean. I had a team of students that helped me design everything,” Nadolny said.

Nadolny also worked with a faculty member who has expertise in the science and data collection used in the island to make sure it is authentic.

“So far, it has taken about two years to create each island,” Nadolny said.

Creating different virtual islands not only takes time, but also takes the help of many different people.

“We have just moved out of the piloting stage. We piloted the first island at three different universities, two in the United States and one in South Africa,” Nadolny said.

The piloting stage is where professors and their classes try the program to see if it works before it is released.

Although it is designed primarily for students, SciEthics is available to anyone.

“Just a few weeks ago, we released it to the public so anyone can take the file of what we made and put it on their own virtual world and use it,” Nadolny said.

The release event was held Nov. 14, and it was live on Google Plus so anyone could join in. The island that was released is called TransGen.

“In TransGen, students take on the role of someone who has just been hired into a company that genetically modifies salmon,” Nadolny said. “They have to learn background information, explore hidden areas of the island and collect data.”

The release event sparked interest from a number of different universities, and the feedback from students has been positive so far.

“Ethical training has increasingly been recognized as important in industries and in academia,” Pierlott said.

The NSF gave this grant because they believe the methods that teachers are practicing are not necessarily working.

“They want more innovative ideas on how to experience ethical dilemmas in the sciences, and that is why they funded us… We had a creative idea, and they thought it might work,” Nadolny said.

Although the SciEthics project is brand new and is already expanding, it has yet to be used at Iowa State.

“We are working with the Bio Ethics program to have it be an activity with students in genetics,” Nadolny said. “We don’t just want to help people in science and engineering classes; we want to help everybody have these kind of experiences.”