About This Site
This Web site provides teachers with links to chemistry simulations, organized by which McREL standard (and in some cases, national science education standard) to which they correspond. You can view the site either through
Simulations Aligned to the Standards
or you can view the complete list of simulations in our
Background
The Internet provides a wealth of science-education materials for students and teachers. They range from text-heavy Web sites that provide readings on an encyclopedic range of topics to illustrations of scientific phenomena to tutorials that provide students with individual coaching. Unfortunately, these tend to be passive experiences for students.
A growing number of sites, however, permit a student to take an active role and participate in a scientific simulation. This catalog details those sites that afford high school students the chance to manipulate variables in a simulated chemistry activity and see the results of their involvement. The opportunity to make such changes encourages students to form hypotheses, test conclusions, and find patterns in the relationships among variables.
In addition, such Web sites assist teachers who want students to engage in Web-based enrichment activities that support the same inquiry-learning practiced in the classroom. This catalog is intended not only as a list of resources but also as a guide to the level of inquiry science that is possible on the Web.
We chose to feature chemistry simulations because direct experience with many chemistry concepts or phenomena is frequently difficult or dangerous—or both. Chemistry teaching can especially benefit from good interactive simulations.
The catalog is organized by which science standard a given Web site addresses. A standards-oriented teacher may be teaching to a particular standard and want inquiry-driven simulations that align with that standard. The list of sample chemistry simulations aligns to the McREL standards for 9–12 physical science and to the 9–12 national science education standards.
Educators are encouraged to select from the list a standard of interest and read the annotated reference to one or more Web sites that have a related interactive simulation. (One of the standards—understanding the complete mole concept—does not have a related simulation, because it does not lend itself easily to interaction.)
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0304104. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation
Disclaimer:
The Web resources collected on these pages are not maintained by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC). None of the Web resources are affiliated with or sponsored by EDC. EDC is merely providing the Web resources for informational purposes. EDC cannot guarantee that the Web resources are active or that the content is accurate. As with all Web-based information, links change from time to time. To our knowledge, all links were functional as of June 2004. Please notify Kerry Ouellet at kouellet@edc.org if you experience any problems.
Images used in this Web product © 2007 JupiterImages
