The target audience for Virtual Learning Forests will ultimately be undergraduate natural resource students at universities worldwide.  The immediate audience during the life of this project will be undergraduate forestry students in sampling, mensuration, and silviculture classes at the University of Florida (UF) and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech).  These students will be involved with testing and evaluating the product during the development of the first phase of this product. The goal during the 24 month life of this project will be to develop a first (beta) version of a 3D Virtual Learning Forest in a virtual world environment (VWE) based on the longleaf pine ecosystem, and to measure how students react to it and how it impacts their learning experience.