ST. CHARLES, Mo. - It’s “back to school" in a bold, new way at St. Charles Community College. 

The school is about to christen its new DreamScape Learn labs, sort of an offshoot from Dreamworks animated movies. 

Steven Spielberg, the legendary Hollywood producer/director, helped develop the concept of DreamScape Learn, according to  its promoters.

It’s an immersive, virtual reality curriculum, and it first launched at Arizona State University in 2022. 

“This is just part of the class. They still have classroom lectures. They still have traditional labs but this is a 3rd piece of the puzzle for the class that brings it all together,” Compton said.

Biology students at St. Charles CC will be the first to use it in the Midwest.

“Students put the headset on and they're diagnosing a problem. They're analyzing data that they've been given.  At the end of the module, they're coming up with the solution,” said Parker King, of the school’s new Center for Immersive Learning.

FOX 2 took it for a test drive, delivering cancer-killing medication into the nucleus of a cancer cell.

St. Charles CC also boasts a DreamScape Learn "free roam" lab, where students wear digital foot and hand trackers along with the VR headset to explore a virtual Alien Zoo on foot.   

Educators say learning lessons in these virtual worlds helps students better apply those lessons in the real world.   

“We're kind of meeting them in a medium that they're familiar with, that they're used to, that they know how to operate,” King said.

They say the curriculum will be expanded to include a wide range of courses: history, chemistry, astronomy and anthropology, to name a few.    

Research shows students already using the technology are nearly twice as likely to get an "A" grade—a close two-letter grade improvement on average. 

“It really puts (students) in the class, more engaged, more invested, caring more about what it is they're learning, and being able to connect the dots and remember,” Compton said.

About 500 of the more than 6,000 St. Charles CC students are expected to use the program in year 1.