The deadly twisters that rip through Iowa cornfields in the heat of summer are now ripping through ISU classrooms as well – at least virtually.

Students, however, are not running for cover. They are flying and driving through the storms.

The Iowa State Virtual Tornadic Thunderstorm, a project under construction since 1999, has received a total of $100,000 in grants to build a computer-generated virtual reality simulation of a tornado.

Its first phase of development was completed in 2000 and the program is now expanding to include real sound from a tornado, such as hail and rain, as well as allowing students to get “storm chasing” experience under their belts.

Students participating in the virtual storm will now have the ability to drive near or fly over the simulated tornado, all in an effort to understand the ferocious whirlwinds. And with virtual reality redefining labs, students will also have the opportunity to look at the storm “eye to eye.”

“You can see all the different structures in the storm so students can see `OK, this is what causes a wall cloud or an anvil cloud,'” said Bill Gallus, associate professor of geological and atmospheric sciences. “They can learn to think much better about the atmosphere. They can learn to think like scientists.”

The project, a collaboration of several departments including meteorology and the Virtual Reality Applications Center, is scheduled to be finished in about a year, Gallus said.

Gallus’ own interest piqued in the late 1980s. He has been chasing storms since his days as a graduate student 15 years ago.

“I was always interested in the weather,” he said. “When I went away to graduate school in eastern Colorado, I was finally in a place where I could do that.”

A seemingly dangerous hobby in reality, students will be gaining valuable experience collecting data on the storms, a previously unavailable function on the program.

Plans are also in the works to make the virtual storm available on home computers as well. The simulation, which runs on the application “VR Juggler,” is said to be compatible with Windows, Gallus said.

Those who access the storm from home computers will still be able to navigate in 3-D, he said. However, with the introduction of virtual reality to classrooms and other sciences, it remains to be seen what educational effect programs like the virtual storm will have.

“Virtual reality allows students to get a more realistic experience short of going out and doing the real thing,” said 3-D modeling artist for the project Rex Heer. “There aren’t any limits as to what kind of disciplines you can use virtual reality for.”

With virtual reality’s cross-disciplinary nature, a virtual tornado may only be the beginning of such projects. Gallus said there is a possibility of a virtual volcano for the geologic sciences. The hands-on approach is what make these projects so appealing.

“[Students] shouldn’t be just memorizing facts and figures like cloud charts,” he said. “It’s more valuable if you can learn to figure out why certain things happen the way they happen.”