The Virtual Science Lab

“Oooo…Do I have to touch it? It’s so gross!” “I might pass out from the smell!”

Have you ever heard students say anything like that? I remember my friends actually running from the biology room in high school clutching their stomachs… Virtual Science labs have addressed that issue and the Tool Factory has several tools to help our teachers make this virtual reality accessible to kids.

Science Simulations

Teachers have the option to adjust settings and address specific topics and educational objectives. Students perform investigations to answer specific questions. They can observe the simulation or see the results represented in a graph or chart. Students can print, or save information in the simulation to use later in a multi-media presentation.

When I asked a conference participant, who happened to be an engineer, if he believed the simulation would be as good as the real experience, he felt like it would certainly teach them the concept.

Science Diagrams

Teachers and students can utilize this tool to overlay cell structure, label organs or identifying chemical structures instantaneously.

Software such as this simply adds to the ubiquitous information of today. Yet, it could also serve as a powerful teaching tool in a virtual classroom.

This entry was posted on October 29, 2008 at 4:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.



One Response to “The Virtual Science Lab”

  1.   Harry Says:
    October 30th, 2008 at 6:07 pm

    These comments are mostly good. Simulations can be great learning tools. However, I take strong exception to one phrase.

    “Virtual Science labs have addressed that issue…”

    The tool described is not a science lab but a learning tool. The gold standard for the definition of a science lab was written by the National Research Council a few years ago in America’s Lab Report.

    “Laboratory experiences provide opportunities for students to interact directly with the material world (or with data drawn from the material world), using the tools, data collection techniques, models, and theories of science.”

    This definition allows virtual science labs but rules out simulated science labs. They’re not the same.

    For example, the following are virtual science labs.

    1. Remote robotic experiments.
    2. Investigation of large online scientific databases.
    3. Highly interactive software allowing for personal data collection from prerecorded real experiments.

    For an example of number 3, take a look at http://www.smartscience.net.

Leave a Reply