LabTrainingVR: Biosafety Cabinet Edition vs Prisms

LabTrainingVR: Biosafety Cabinet Edition is a free virtual reality course for practicing safe work in a biological safety cabinet (BSC). Its 1.5 hours of training cover identifying Class II BSC parts, maintaining positive airflow, preparing for work, applying safe practices, decontaminating and shutting down, and emergency shutdown procedures. The course is designed for laboratory professionals, including public health and clinical laboratory staff, safety professionals, and others interested in safe BSC use. It supplements CDC’s existing eLearning course on working safely in a BSC. Learners practice in a virtual laboratory without exposure to pathogens or risk of accidental infection or release. The course is headset-only, with versions for HTC Vive and Oculus Quest 2; the equipment guide also identifies Meta Quest 2 and above and OpenXR-compatible headsets. It requires 360° tracking and a play area of at least 3 by 3 feet, with 20 by 20 feet listed as ideal. HTC Vive and tethered-headset setups require Windows 8.1 or later, at least 8 GB RAM, and 20 GB available storage, among other hardware requirements. Quest setup requires Wi-Fi and a mobile device for initial installation.

Prisms is a spatial learning platform for grades 6–12 math and science. Students work through physical, first-person experiences and then connect those experiences to symbolic notation. The curriculum contains more than 100 content and skill-building modules. A classroom package includes VR headsets, charging and storage equipment, and mobile device management software; listed headset support includes Oculus Quest 1. Teachers can watch activity in real time through casting or an event timeline and provide feedback during lessons. Prisms AI gives short written responses to math and science answers and classifies mastery for teachers, who can override the classifications. Released modules can be translated into Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Russian. The company says student data is not used to train third-party AI models and that sensitive or personally identifiable data is not sent to its AI. AI processing uses Anthropic models through AWS Bedrock and is described as FERPA- and COPPA-compliant. Support includes on-demand technical help and professional development with dedicated coaching. Partnerships use fixed license quantities and one-year initial terms unless an order form says otherwise.