CyArk in the Classroom

by Makenna Murray
October 24, 2016

For over a decade, CyArk has remained true to its mission to digitally capture, protect and share the world's most cherished cultural heritage sites. Now, with the world’s largest high-quality archive, including 40 countries across seven continents, CyArk plans to transition this archive of extraordinary places to immersive educational experiences.  

Throughout October, CyArk has been taking these new experiences into classrooms and schools as well as informal centers of learning like libraries and museums, to test the experiences and solicit user feedback. To date, over 1,200 people have toured the world in CyArk’s Immersive VR ranging from Kindergarteners through those in their 90’s.

Currently in its piloting phase, CyArk’s new ‘Explore Your World’ initiative aims to inspire students and spark their curiosity in people, places and stories from all around the world.

On October 6, San Francisco got a sneak peek at CyArk’s VR at the Exploratorium where the museum’s “After Dark” visitors were transported to three sites from CyArk’s global archive.

On October 11, we joined our friends at the KIPP Summit Academy for a session with their fantastic Technology Teacher, Matthew Kandah and members of the KIPP regional support office. Throughout the morning, students from the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade classes were treated to experience designed to dovetail with their history and literature curriculum.

Finally, on October 21, CyArk traveled to Riverside, CA to share these experiences with students from John W. North High School and Longfellow Elementary.

Over the course of the month, we have gotten some fantastic insights into how our users are interacting with the experiences and how they see using CyArk’s archive of content for learning, adventure and exploration.

As CyArk prepares to publicly share these new experiences, the insights of our partners have been invaluable. CyArk will be offering another public demonstration of its Virtual Reality experiences at two events later this year. Learn more about your next chance to try it for yourslef.