Engaging young minds: Augmented reality helps children with STEM

Flinders University

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One of the children respond to the AR content during the trial 

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Credit: G Geng (Flinders University)

Easy-to-use adaptive immersive technologies incorporating augmented reality (AR) can motivate learning, social engagement and cognitive development in early childhood, according to new research.

The Flinders University study found that innovative artificial intelligence-driven AR smart glasses – combined with group work, iPad exercises and other classroom activities – resulted in high levels of engagement and cohesive classroom behaviour when used to teach a science topic in an Australian junior primary school.

The study put cutting-edge AR ‘Immersive Visual Learning Environment’ (AR-IVLE) technology on trial with 84 Year 1 and 2 students and five teachers in a Victorian primary school, enabling researchers to assess how effectively young children engaged in their learning experience.

Education experts at Flinders University, the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and Zhejiang Normal University in China were excited by the results of this multi-modal learning. 

“Unlike traditional touchscreen devices or even bulky 3D glasses, these AR glasses deliver real-time, adaptive feedback aligned with individual learning preferences,” says Flinders University Professor Gretchen Geng, lead author in a new article published in the Journal of Science Education and Technology.

“With wider application of the AR-IVLE, future research will be conducted to investigate and identity challenges and opportunities to assist children’s science learning in this highly engaging and seamless learning environment,” she says.

The AR glasses were synchronised with iPads and Apple TVs, enabling shared viewing of digital content to foster collaboration between pupils and teachers. The rich sensory input and kinaesthetic experiences during play-based learning revealed enhanced engagement, increased interaction with virtual objects, and improved academic outcomes.

The virtual world brought to life lessons about ants and their nest-building communities, which researchers say can prove complex and difficult for young children to learn in traditional classroom settings.

During the trial, the teachers asked the students to sit in front of the classroom as a whole group first.

Under the teachers’ supervision, each student took turns using the AR smart glasses for approximately 5 to 7 minutes, while the remaining group members observed the experience on the iPad. This approach meant the students who were not wearing the glasses remained actively engaged by following and observing the AR-IVLE in real time through the iPad display.

Students who wore AR smart glasses could walk around the room and observe the ants and ant nest from different angles. They used various gestures and were able to zoom in and out to interact with the virtual learning objects. Meanwhile, the group members were seen communicating with each other verbally, giving directions such as locating the queen ant, worker ants, male ants and the chambers.

Some of the observations from whole-class feedback and followup assessment, included:

• Students using AR smart glasses in immersive virtual learning environments showed dramatically higher engagement than those using traditional iPad or tablets. Stronger focus, higher energy levels, more creativity and more active participation were observed during learning activities.

• Learning outcomes were also enhanced, with students demonstrating deeper understanding, richer ideas and stronger problem-solving skills through their work and reflections.

• When AR smart classes were paired with iPads or classroom TV for group activities, social engagement increased significantly, encouraging greater collaboration through shared exploration, discussion and teamwork.

Researchers say future multisite studies across diverse early childhood settings and socio-economic contexts could be conducted to validate and extend these findings.

Longer-term studies with reduced researcher involvement are needed to better distinguish novelty effects from sustained engagement, they say.

Also see, ‘AI-powered augmented reality glasses enhance interactive immersive learning for young children’ (2025) by Gretchen Geng, Amanda Telford (ACU), Yue Zhu (Zhejiang Normal University, China) and Kathy Green (ACU) has been published in Interactive Learning Environments (Taylor & Unwin). Received 05 Apr 2025, Accepted 05 Nov 2025, Published online: 10 Dec 2025 https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2025.2590602

The latest article, Engaging Young Minds: How Smart Augmented Reality Glasses Transform Learning Experiences in AR smart glasses Immersive Virtual Learning Environments (AR smart glasses IVLE) 2026 by Gretchen Geng, Kathy Green, Amanda Telford (both ACU) and Yue Zhu (College of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, China), have been published in the Journal of Science Education and Technology (Springer Nature Link) DOI: 10.1007/s10956-026-10299-4.

Acknowledgements: This research has obtained full ethical clearance (Ethics application: 2023-3299H) from the Ethics Committee in Australian Catholic University. All participants, including children and their parents, were asked for their informed consent.

The AR Pioneer technology company (ROKID) loaned six pairs of AR smart glasses and developed the smart AR teaching resources for the research project.

  

Part of the ant nest visual display seen through the smart glasses. 

Credit

G Geng (Flinders University)

Flinders Professor in Innovative Education Futures Gretchen Geng with the AR smart glasses on loan from US tech company ROKID

Credit

Flinders University

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Journal

Journal of Science Education and Technology

DOI

10.1007/s10956-026-10299-4 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Engaging Young Minds: How Smart Augmented Reality Glasses Transform Learning Experiences in AR smart glasses Immersive Virtual Learning Environments (AR smart glasses IVLE)

 

Study suggests data centers will boost power bills up to 57% by 2030

North Carolina State University

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New research suggests electricity demand from data centers and cryptocurrency mining is likely to increase power costs in some parts of the country by up to 57% by 2030, with a national average increase of 6%-29%. Electricity demand related to data centers is also likely to increase CO2 emissions by up to 28% by 2030, relative to a future with no data center growth, according to the analysis from North Carolina State University, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Toronto.

“Power demand in the U.S. was relatively flat for almost 20 years,” says Jeremiah Johnson, corresponding author of a journal article on the work and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University. “But in the past couple of years we’ve seen a significant increase in power demand, due largely to data centers and – to a lesser extent – cryptocurrency mining.

“We wanted to understand the implications of this increased demand,” Johnson says. “What new power infrastructure will need to be built? Where? How will these systems be operated? What will that mean for the cost of electricity? And what will it mean for carbon emissions?”

The researchers drew on recent research to estimate data center and cryptocurrency power demand through 2030, and then made use of computational modeling tools to forecast what technologies would be used to generate that power.

“Specifically, we used an energy system optimization model,” says Anderson de Queiroz, co-author of the paper and an associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State. “An energy system is the full supply chain that delivers energy to people. And optimization models are tools that can be used to search for the least expensive ways to plan, maintain and operate energy systems in order to meet energy demand while complying with existing laws and regulations.”

“The optimization model we used for this work was designed to focus on electrical power generation,” says Johnson. “We were able to look at energy supply and demand on an hourly level for 26 regions of the power grid, covering the lower 48 United States.”

One key finding from the optimization model is that increased demand will lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation, by up to 28% over the next three and a half years.

“The power sector has made progress in reducing carbon emissions over the past 20 years, but the increased demand will essentially erase a lot of that progress,” says Johnson.

“We also found that electricity costs will increase by an average of 6%-29%, nationally. However, those prices could increase as much as 57%, depending on where you are in the country.”

Those electricity price increases would be most pronounced in Virginia, eastern North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, west Texas, Ohio, West Virginia and New York.

“But those future price increases depend on where new data centers are built,” Johnson says. “For example, price increases in Virginia jump due to substantial expansion of data centers. If the data centers are distributed more broadly across the country, Virginia won’t be hit as hard. Prices will still go up for everyone, but the expense will be spread more evenly across the country.

“There is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the cost of installing new natural gas turbines and the cost of natural gas itself,” Johnson says. “But regardless of fuel cost and the cost to build new natural gas plants, we still see substantial increases in electricity cost and CO2 emissions.

“The public and policymakers need to be aware of these near-term challenges – 2030 is less than four years away,” says Johnson. “Our findings highlight the need for regulators and utilities to make informed decisions about near-term power generation, and for government officials at all levels to make informed decisions related to the construction of data centers.”

The paper, “Power System Costs and Emissions from Data Center and Cryptocurrency Mining Expansion in the United States,” is published open access in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The paper was co-authored by Cameron Wade of Sutubra Research; Michael Blackhurst of the University of Pittsburgh; Joseph DeCarolis and Paulina Jaramillo of Carnegie Mellon University; and Daniel Posen of the University of Toronto.

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Journal

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/ae6c3d 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Power System Costs and Emissions from Data Center and Cryptocurrency Mining Expansion in the United States

Article Publication Date

12-May-2026

Turning down the heat from data centers

Research aims to reduce impact of heat pollution on downwind neighborhoods

Arizona State University

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Data centers can discharge air heated to 14 to 25 degrees F above the surrounding air temperature, creating thermal plumes that move downwind.

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Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Waste heat from data centers can boost air temperatures in downwind neighborhoods by as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers at Arizona State University report in a new study conducted in the Phoenix metro area, the hottest in the U.S.

“As we do more measurements under different kinds of atmospheric conditions, I think we're going to see more significant impacts around data centers,” said lead author David Sailor.  

With hundreds of megawatts of data center capacity operating in many cities, and thousands more proposed, the combined impact on urban temperature could be substantial. U.S. data center capacity is projected to more than double by 2030. Sailor and co-authors said the overlooked heat hazard demands attention from city planners and industry developers. The researchers aim to help develop solutions that could significantly reduce downwind impacts.

The waste heat produced by a single data center can surpass the amount emitted by 40,000 households, according to Sailor. Air-cooled condenser arrays discharge air heated to 14 to 25 degrees F above the surrounding air temperature, creating thermal plumes that move downwind over neighboring areas.

“They're such a concentrated load of electricity consumption and hence heat emissions that we became concerned about the impact that they could have locally, and also in the downwind neighborhoods,” said Sailor, a professor at Arizona State University and director of ASU’s School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning.

Other researchers have tried to use remote sensing data from satellites to estimate the heat impact of data centers historically. The ASU study is the first to directly measure air temperatures downwind and upwind of data centers to record the real-time effects of waste heat on surrounding communities. Sailor and co-authors Soroush Samareh Abolhassani and Eli Martin are publishing their findings in the Journal of Engineering for Sustainable Buildings and Cities.

The researchers mounted data-logging high-accuracy and fast-response temperature sensors on cars that drove around Phoenix-area data centers and throughout nearby neighborhoods from June 18 to October 25, 2025. Using multiple cars allowed them to simultaneously measure temperatures upwind and the downwind of the four selected facilities ranging from a 36-megawatt single-building data center in Mesa to a 169-megawatt colocation campus in Chandler. The chosen centers reflect the typical design of “hyperscalers” that house many thousands of servers and use primarily air-based cooling systems.

Temperatures downwind of data centers averaged 1.3 to 1.6 degrees F warmer than upwind temperatures and reached as high as 4 degrees F above upwind temperatures. The heat impact was detectable up to a third of a mile, or about five city blocks, distant from the perimeter of datacenters.

“Even if these data centers only contribute to an additional heat island magnitude of one degree or two degrees, that can still have a very significant impact on our lives,” Sailor said. That’s especially true in places where extreme heat already poses serious public health risks.

A one-degree boost in air temperature, for example, is enough to drive higher use of air conditioning across entire neighborhoods. Those air conditioners, in turn, put even more heat into the surroundings.

Sailor and colleagues are planning a more extensive effort collect data over a wider range of times and weather conditions. That data will allow them to develop an accurate atmospheric model to study the effects of measures to lessen the heat impact on downwind neighborhoods.

“Data centers are inherently an important part of our society, and they're going to become even more necessary going forward,” Sailor said. Rather than just highlight adverse consequences, his goal is to collaborate with data center providers and other stakeholders to develop the knowledge needed to reduce the heat pollution problem.

Design modifications to facilities and cooling equipment informed by high-resolution microclimate modeling, for example, could lower the thermal footprint of a data center without compromising data center operations. Greenbelts or parks could buffer heat pollution. Cities could require such fixes in siting and permitting of data centers.

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This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research’s Urban Integrated Field Laboratories research activity, under Award Number DE-SC0023520.

 

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DOI

10.1115/1.4071922 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Data center waste heat as an emerging urban thermal hazard: First field measurements of neighborhood-scale air temperature impacts

Article Publication Date

12-May-2026

 

“Even recognizing puddles at night”... KAIST surpasses the limits of autonomous driving​

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

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< (From left) Ph.D. student Hanbin Cho, Postdoctoral Researcher Wenxuan Zhu, Professor Joonki Suh, and MS-PhD integrated student Changhwan Kim > 

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Credit: KAIST

A technology that surpasses the limitations of existing sensors, which failed to distinguish between water and asphalt on dark roads, has emerged to enhance the accuracy of autonomous driving and medical diagnostics. Our university's research team has developed a next-generation polarization sensor that can read the "direction" of light and change its own response. KAIST announced on May 12th that a research team led by Professor Joonki Suh from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering has developed a "self-reconfigurable" polarization sensor array technology that regulates its operation by finding the optimal state using "polarization" information—the property of light vibrating in a specific direction. With the recent explosive increase in data and the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, the need for next-generation vision systems that can efficiently process vast amounts of information with low energy is growing. However, existing image sensors only detect the intensity (brightness) of light, limiting their ability to precisely grasp the orientation or surface structure of objects. To overcome these limitations, the research team developed a polarization-based sensor technology capable of recognizing the vibration direction of light. In particular, by utilizing a "heterostructure" that combines two different materials—tellurium (Te) and rhenium disulfide (ReS₂)—they effectively implemented characteristics where the response to light varies depending on the crystal orientation.

To precisely stack the two materials so they cross each other, the research team applied "Epitaxial Atomic Layer Deposition," a process that controls crystal structures by stacking materials precisely at the atomic layer level. By ensuring the crystal structures of the two materials interlock accurately, they secured higher reproducibility and stable performance compared to previous methods. In this structure, when light is irradiated, interfacial carrier transfer and trapping (a phenomenon where electrons move or stay at specific locations) occur at the material boundary. As a result, a "bipolar photoresponse"—a light-induced reaction where the current direction flips depending on conditions such as light intensity, wavelength, and direction—appears. A key feature is that the sensor's operating state can be freely adjusted using only light, without external electrical signals. Furthermore, this technology can be applied to "in-sensor computing" structures where the sensor itself processes data, allowing for the efficient processing of multi-dimensional optical information that changes over time without complex calculation processes. In actual experiments, it recorded a high accuracy of over 95% in recognizing moving objects, proving its potential for applications in various fields such as autonomous driving and medical diagnosis.

Professor Joonki Suh stated, "This research presents a new foundation for AI vision technology that can secure richer visual information by utilizing polarization information. It is expected to play an important role in implementing low-power, high-efficiency AI systems in the future." Wenxuan Zhu (Postdoctoral Researcher) and Changhwan Kim (Ph.D. student) participated as first authors in this study, with Professor Joonki Suh participating as the corresponding author. The research results were published on April 14 in the international academic journal Nature Sensors.

• Paper Title: Self-reconfigurable polarization perception in dual-anisotropy heterostructures for high-dimensional in-sensor computing
• Authors: Wenxuan Zhu, Changhwan Kim, Ruofan Zhang, Mingchun Lu, Namwook Hur, Hanbin Cho, Jihyun Kim, Jiacheng Sun, Joohoon Kang, Junchi Yan, Yuan Cheng & Joonki Suh
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44460-026-00057-9

 

< Paper portfolio and QR code > 

Credit

KAIST

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DOI

10.1038/s44460-026-00057-9 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Self-reconfigurable polarization perception in dual-anisotropy heterostructures for high-dimensional in-sensor computing

Sustainable Mobility Center aims to transform how the world moves

The Precourt Institute for Energy at the Doerr School of Sustainability has launched a cross-campus initiative to fundamentally rethink how people and goods move across land, sea, and air.

Stanford University

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The new Center for Sustainability Research will seek to make transportation of people and goods over land, air, and sea more sustainable, as well as to make interconnected mobility systems more efficient and less expensive.

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Credit: Courtesy Center for Automotive Research at Stanford

When you drive a conventional car, only 1% of the gasoline burned gets you from point A to point B. Almost all the fuel’s energy just generates wasted heat and propels your two-ton vehicle down the road. That $5 a gallon gasoline delivered less than a nickel’s worth of value.

Surely, we can do better.

The Precourt Institute for Energy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability has launched the Sustainable Mobility Center to fundamentally rethink how people and goods move across land, sea, and air – systems that mostly operate as they did decades ago. This new center aims to make mobility systems more sustainable in the broad sense of the word: environmentally responsible, affordable, reliable, safe, and fair, with solutions that can scale worldwide.

“Transportation is the backbone of the global economy, but also one of its most difficult sectors to transform,” said Marco Pavone, faculty co-director of the Sustainable Mobility Center with Ram Rajagopal. “The center is designed to combine Stanford’s strengths – from energy systems to AI and autonomy – with industry and government collaboration to accelerate real-world solutions at scale.”

Systems-level approach

The global transportation system incorporates vehicles, infrastructure, energy networks, operations, public policies, and human behavior. Making this system broadly sustainable demands a coordinated redesign, according to the new program’s leaders.

An example of overlapping challenges: While electric vehicles do not produce local pollution, most are charged by electric grids that rely on fossil fuel power plants that pollute neighboring communities and drive climate change. Relatedly, how will growing adoption of EVs affect the stability of electricity grids? More broadly, how will public and private transportation of people, as well as the movement of goods over land, air, and sea, work together to improve efficiency, speed, cost, and other goals?

“We are not simply transitioning from one energy source to another,” said Rajagopal, associate professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering, a joint department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and the School of Engineering. “We are rethinking how mobility systems are designed, optimized, and experienced by leveraging new transportation technologies and advances in AI, autonomy, digital infrastructure, smart grids, and data-driven decision-making.”

Bridging research and impact

The Sustainable Mobility Center’s leadership team understands how foundational research, technology development, the digital economy, and real-world deployment work together, and how more sustainable transportation can help make communities and cities cleaner and healthier for generations to come.

William Chueh, who is the faculty director of Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy, is a leader in energy science and technology and an entrepreneur. Rajagopal is an expert in power systems and the integration of renewables, smart distribution systems, and demand-side data analytics. He also directs Stanford’s smart grid initiative, Bits & Watts, which has funded extensive research on preparing electric grids for high penetration of electric vehicles. Rajagopal is co-founder and chief technology officer of a software startup for managing higher electricity demand on electricity grids.

Pavone is an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford’s School of Engineering and leads autonomous vehicle research at NVIDIA. His research centers on physical AI, with applications including self-driving cars, autonomous aerospace vehicles, and general-purpose robotic systems. Pavone directed the Center for Automotive Research at Stanford, a long-standing program that shaped the evolution of autonomous vehicle technology and was the forerunner to the Sustainable Mobility Center.

“AI and autonomy are not separate from sustainability. They are central to it,” said Pavone. “They allow us to operate mobility systems with a level of efficiency, safety, and coordination that simply wasn’t possible before.”

Twenty Stanford faculty members across five schools have affiliated themselves with the center.

The Sustainable Mobility Center’s activities will be funded by corporations through two mechanisms: member fees paid to an industrial affiliates program and research sponsored by individual companies. Membership fees are pooled to fund the new center’s research, educational, and other efforts.

While affiliate members can advise center leadership on research initiatives, the faculty directors decide the topics for proposal requests and select Stanford research projects to fund through a competitive process. The center and the Precourt Institute will help members sponsor research by connecting them with Stanford faculty who share their academic interests. Stanford’s Office of Research Administration oversees sponsored research projects.

“As throughout the campus, industry engagement is essential to ensure that our research is grounded in real-world challenges and constraints,” said Ryan Chin, the center’s managing director.

“We will work with our academic and business affiliates to develop solutions that are technically rigorous and practically deployable,” added Chin, who is co-founder and former CEO of an autonomous vehicle company spun out of MIT, where he earned his doctorate.

The six founding industry supporters are International Motors, LLC, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Prologis, Rivian, Shell, and Yazaki North America.

Research focus and structure

To accelerate progress, the Sustainable Mobility Center will convene stakeholders around a set of global, persistent, and complex challenges. “These ‘Grand Challenges’ include zero-emission freight, sustainable aviation fuels, intelligent logistics systems, multi-modal transportation networks, and resilient infrastructure,” said associate director Eylül Bilgin, PhD ’23 in aeronautics and astronautics.

To enable solutions for Grand Challenges, the Sustainable Mobility Center’s work has been organized around five pillars. Each pillar enables in-depth technical development while also serving as a building block for integrated solutions that align with Grand Challenge opportunities. For example, to develop zero-emission freight at global scale, new vehicle technology, intelligent infrastructure, safety systems, and sensible policies and economics must all work together to unlock grand challenge opportunities.

The center’s five core pillars are:

• Energy systems: Advancing electrification, sustainable fuels (in partnership with the Precourt Institute’s Center for Fuels of the Future), and deep integration with energy infrastructure – including grid resilience, smart charging, and vehicle-to-grid systems.
• Infrastructure: Designing next-generation physical and digital infrastructure, from charging and fueling networks to connected, data-enabled transportation systems.
• Economics and policy: Aligning incentives, markets, and regulatory frameworks to enable adoption, scale, and access to sustainable mobility solutions for everyone.
• Safety: Ensuring secure, reliable, and trustworthy mobility systems, particularly as autonomy and AI-driven decision-making become more prevalent.
• Interdisciplinary design: Reimagining mobility through human-centered and systems-level approaches that integrate engineering, urban design, and behavioral science.

Invited leaders from academia, industry, and government will participate in the center’s inaugural meeting at Stanford on May 21. Participants will primarily work to define the scope and priorities of the program’s initial Grand Challenges, as well as opportunities for additional companies to engage in the work.

“The world needs new models for mobility, ones that are sustainable, affordable, secure, and deeply integrated with the technologies shaping our future,” said Chueh. “Stanford’s Sustainable Mobility Center is positioned to substantially define that future.”