Real Life Government/Examples

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The purpose of this page is to share examples and best practices of what your agencies are publicly doing in Second Life. Please add what you are doing using a similar format as others.

NASA: International Space Station in Second Life

Overview: A classroom-course facilitated virtual build of the International Space Station in Second Life, complete with all current components, rendered to scale with accurate physical specifications, and the ability to lock in place when assembled correctly. This project will catalyze the volunteer community, involve them in creating something substantial, and teach them about the ISS, space sciences, and technical skills (programming and 3-dimensional building).

Website: http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/node/21

SLURLsL:

• Spaceport Alpha - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Alpha/115/145/22/
• Spaceport Bravo - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Bravo/12/80/23

NASA: Virtual CoLab

Overview: The virtual CoLab is a dedicated “island” in the “Second Life” online virtual world, and will later be complemented by a traditional Web-based community website.

You may visit CoLab in the virtual world Second Life at any time. Regular weekly CoLab community organizing meetings are held on "Space CoLab" island every Tuesday at 1pm Pacific Daylight Time. These online communities will complement and extend the offline physical CoLab in order to:

• Engage stakeholders in designing and building the CoLab: consistent with the values of the CoLab project
• Prototype the physical CoLab in Second Life virtual space as a test bed before investing resources in building the actual physical CoLab
• Enable technology entrepreneurs outside the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in and benefit from CoLab
• Help ARC communicate the value of CoLab to other NASA facilities and external institutions
• Create expertise within ARC in the important new online technology realm of “social software,” in order to help ARC more effectively contribute to NASA’s public exploration efforts

Website: http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/virtual

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/NASA%20CoLab/244/110/23

NOAA Virtual World

Overview: Soar through a hurricane on the wing of a research aircraft, rise gently through the atmosphere atop a weather balloon or search for a hidden underwater cave on a side trip from a NOAA submersible. These and other virtual adventures are attracting large numbers of "avatars," or virtual selves, to one of the first government-sponsored, Earth-science "islands" in the rapidly growing online world of Second Life. The NOAA Earth System Research Lab developed the site for users to have the experiences in the virtual world they may not have in the physical world, and learn about the cutting-edge science that NOAA conducts regularly. See press release for more information about.

SLURLs:

• Meteora: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Meteora/177/161/27/
• Okeanos: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okeanos/64/217/30/

Website: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/#sl

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackshaven/sets/72157594500016565/

SciLands Virtual Continent

Overview: The SciLands is a mini-continent and user community in the virtual world platform Second Life devoted exclusively to science and technology. There are over 20 science and technology related organizations in the SciLands, including government agencies, universities and museums. Click here for the current list of organizations. SciLands members have regular meetings in Second Life where they share ideas, help each other, and plan future projects. Members also share resources like meeting spaces on their islands. Careful planning, organization, and technical features ensure that SciLands continues to grow.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scilands/128/128/30/

Website: http://www.scilands.org/

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/groups/scilands/pool/