Texas Tech Researchers Will Use Emerging Technologies to Enhance Learning - Texas Tech University

Muntazar Monsur, an associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, is leading the cross-functional research group. The grant comes from the National Science Foundation. The goal is straightforward: use XR tools to make invisible parts of the natural world visible, especially for students living in urban environments where access to open land isn't always easy.

Monsur's team is building tools meant for classrooms, not labs. For a city like Lubbock, surrounded by agricultural land but still an urban environment for many students, that gap between concrete and countryside is real.

If the technology works as planned, it could reshape how science teachers in West Texas approach outdoor education. Instead of a field trip or a textbook diagram, students could get an immersive look at ecological systems most of them never see up close. In a region where agriculture drives the economy, that disconnect matters, since plenty of kids grow up without much contact with it.

A landscape architecture professor is now one of the people deciding how the next generation of Lubbock students learns to see the natural world around them.