Work in progress - using the virtual world to improve our world

Our college is leveraging Second Life to develop and build sustainable problem solving communities to address pressing social problems through the collaborative efforts of college students, high school students, volunteers, staff members affiliated with the Food Bank Council of Michigan (FBCM), and Gleaners Incorporated. Our approach is to have engineering students build a Second Life island that provides a structure for collaborative problem solving activities. Second Life serves as a vehicle to build a stronger community among food bank network members, to help conceptualize parameters of their problems, develop virtual solutions collaboratively, test these solutions, and then implement these solutions in the real world. Three projects were created in Second Life. Initial student survey data indicates satisfaction with the service learning experience.