Virtual reality girls is no longer the stuff of science fiction. The technology, which immerses users in a digital world, is increasingly used to provide educational, medical and business applications. In addition, it’s a great tool to promote the advancement of women in STEM fields and to defeat long-standing biases that discourage girls and women from science careers.

Games companies design games to appeal to specific interests, such as celebrities, fashion, virtual worlds and pets. The virtual reality versions of these games allow players to choose the physical and mental characteristics of their characters and give them makeovers. They may also go shopping at a virtual mall or create their own fashion line. Some VR games even include pet care, where players can adopt dogs, cats or other furry creatures and take them on walks, teach them tricks and play with them at home.

Some researchers are using virtual reality to help students learn. For example, a team from BeAnotherLab has developed an empathy-training experiment that allows people to swap bodies with someone else. Participants wear a headset and camera that projects the point of view of their body to a person wearing the opposite gender’s VR headset, giving them the illusion they are inhabiting another’s body.

Beyond Reality: Unlocking the Wonders of Immersive VR Experiences

One group that’s putting a positive spin on virtual reality is the Indiana Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, which offers career exploration simulations for high school students in Indiana schools and community centers. The program uses VR provided by the VR workforce-training company Transfr, which has a variety of jobs to choose from, including putting up power lines and landing a plane. The idea is to encourage kids to consider a career in a field they might not otherwise have considered, says Tom Darling, the organization’s director of strategic initiatives.