Atlantic Coast High School students had a chance Monday to look closely inside the human heart, brain, lungs, liver, colon and other places where a strong stomach is usually required.

They did that without even having to wash their hands, thanks to a one-day loan of virtual reality equipment that’s changing instruction for a new generation of healthcare professionals.

“It’s a deeper level of learning,” said Amber Santos , director of innovation and immersive learning at Jacksonville University, which supplied equipment and staff to introduce about 100 teens to anatomy software used in JU’s immersive learning program .

“This hands-on experience with Jacksonville University is a game-changer for our students,” Principal Michael George said in a JU release that noted the chance students can have to make a positive impact in the medical field.

“Additionally, it opens their perspective on how far technology has advanced in healthcare,” George said in the release. “For a generation accustomed to interactive computer programs and immersive language, this technology speaks to them in a new generational way.”

The high school has a program through Mayo Clinic training students to become certified nursing assistants, and JU’s one-day outreach helped some of those students broaden their knowledge.

Wearing VR goggles, rotations of students spent about 45 minutes each picking through a slate of dozens of organ options ranging from the eye to the pancreas, conjuring up visuals showing effects of conditions ranging from diabetes to macular degeneration.

The software’s dissection feature makes it possible to get up close with different body parts in ways that aren’t practical outside of VR, said Jayda Bowers, a junior in the CNA program.

Being able to visualize inside the body is “kind of revolutionary,” said Hayes Edwards, a junior who has been reading in an Advanced Placement class about a character with multiple sclerosis, then used VR to look at how MS impacts the brain’s nerve cells.

Immersive learning is part of a range of steps JU has taken to draw in nursing students to meet market demand for new graduates.