One of the ways science teacher accomplish this is by incorporating labs into the class, something most of us are very familiar with. However, sometimes I come across topics in which restrictions keep me from doing relevant lab activities with my student (too expensive, too dangerous, do not have proper equipment, uncontrolled environment creates too many errors, etc.). This is something I ran into my first year teaching - I do not thin I will ever forget how much time and effort I put into a Photosynthesis Lab: creating the document, driving all over creation in the dead of winter to find the right aquatic plant, etc. Needless to say, it was a cool lab - the kids really enjoyed reading it and setting it up. However, when I got to school the next day, result-collecting-day, i was heart broken to see the reaction had not worked as it was supposed to. The results,(the few I had, anyway) would not have been meaningful to the students. This is when I discovered an online lab website called explorelearning.com.
This website is loaded with "gizmos" - their cute whip for an interactive lab simulation. The first lab I found here was one I needed - on photosynthesis. It not only let student manipulate the one variable I was aking them to (carbon dioxide concentration), but temperature, sunlight, etc. It had built in features to allow students to graph their results and screen captures tools and everything! I fell in love. Here is a screenshot from that gizmo:
Each "gizmo" also has a downloadable teacher guide, student handout and mini-quiz to check for understanding. Once you register, and your class is setup, your students scores even record on line. The gizmos are for both math and science. Of course, real labs are fantastic and nothing can replace a true experience, but sometimes we can't also give them the real thing.
I have also found this useful for assigning over breaks, and for students who were absent for a lab activity and cannot make it up.
Anyways, if you are a math or science teacher, this is definitely a site wroth checking out :).
Very intresting, Thanks for sharing about the blog bookmarks and this site. Perfect timing because my daughters have to do a sciece project and this will help them track their results.
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LCuba
This is a very cool website! Though I will probably never be in front of a Science classroom (if everyone knows what is good for them), it's really interesting to know that there is a tool like this available if actual lab experiments aren't feasible (doe to lack of funding, dangerous experiment components, etc.). Did your students really enjoy learning this way? And how did it affect their understanding of the concept on future assessments?
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the info!