A Virtual-World-Within-A-Virtual-World

At The Learning Experience:
History, Culture, Nature
Like You've Never Seen It
& For Free!

By: Alas Zerbino - TLE Official Blogger

If the world ends and everything is destroyed except the handful of Second Life servers that run The Learning Experience's sims, whatever beings find those servers will end up with a dang good overview of the history of Earth!

But you don't have to wait until the end of the world! You can go right now to The Learning Experience's incredible Interactive World History Museum and Interactive Animal, Zoo, Marine Biology Museum and not just learn about stuff, but interact with it!

Using the knowledge of researchers and experts from all over the (real) world, we are building an immense virtual interactive experience where you can (among many other activities):

• Walk right up to lions and tigers and bears in their own habitat at the Lions & Tigers & Bears exhibit.


• Experience the life of homeless urban people at the Urban Living & Travel exhibit.


• Take the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower, a build so realistic your avatar won't know which is the real one.


• Drink tea in an authentic replica of a Japanese tea house at the Oriental History & Gardens exhibit.


• Dodge the ghosts of a pirate ship while you discover the history of piracy at the Pirates & Ports exhibit.


• Zoom into space to hang out with the planets and stars at the Planetarium (one of my favorites).


• Get lost in a gigantic ant farm where the ants are nearly as big as your avatar, at the Critters & Bugs exhibit.


• And have thousands of other experiences and interactions that are impossible in the real world (for most of us, anyway).

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. (Which, by the way, you can even visit, at the Arctic & Cold Weather display.) Even as you read this, many more exhibits and additions are being planned, researched, and built.

OK, you may be thinking, museum exhibits? Ho-hum.

Not a chance you'll get bored at these museums. In fact, it hardly makes sense to call these installations mere "museums." When you go to either museum at The Learning Experience, you actually step into a virtual-world-within-a-virtual-world that offers not just information, but the experience of what it must have been like, for example, to be the keeper of an original lighthouse (part of the Nautical History & Lighthouses exhibit, or walk through a dinosaur-inhabited rainforest, or play "street ball" in a grungy inner-city alley.

And you'll also get the facts behind the sights and sounds and experiences, thanks to the contributions of photos and information from renowned experts around the world. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there's as much learning available at TLE's Interactive World History Museum and Interactive Animal, Zoo, Marine Biology Museum as there is in a typical college's basic-studies program.

TLE's interactive museum even has a special display for you Elvis fans in the Pop Culture Building.

If you don't get enough fun at the exhibits, you can always take some time to ride the ferris wheel, with its speeds ranging from "slowest" to "insane," and the merry-go-round, which are worth a visit all by themselves!

By now you've probably guessed what I'm going to say next: It's impossible to share the full scope of these museums—even in their still-infant state--in a single blog post. But The Learning Experience offers an excellent and fun way to get an overview of what you'll find at these museums: The Learning Express tour.

Here's what I recommend:

1. Go to either of the museums' central landing terminals: the Interactive World History Museum or the Interactive Animal, Zoo, Marine Biology Museum.

2. At the landing terminal, click through the teleporter's options just to see the multitude of places to go.

3. Then step outside the landing terminal and locate the starting point for the self-guided Learning Express tour, which looks similar to this:

Or, go directly to the starting point of the tours:

TLE History Learning Express

TLE Zoo Learning Express

4. Call up your own private touring car (2- and 4-seater models are available).

5. Hop in (right-click a seat and choose "Sit Here").

6. Hang on for a sometimes-wild, but always fascinating guided tour of what's available. (By the way, you can always get off, but I wouldn't recommend it when you're halfway to the Sky Dock!)

I guarantee you're in for the ride of your virtual life!

In coming posts, I'll share some of my favorite places in these two "museums," let you know about the new exhibits as they are built, and talk about the other great opportunities you'll find at The Learning Experience (which, by the way, is at least four times the size of its two museums!).

I look forward to the journey with you.