Learn about collisions by playing air hockey! Set up your own experiments: vary the number of discs, masses and initial conditions. Is momentum conserved? Is kinetic energy conserved? Vary the elasticity and see what happens.
For Grades 9-12, this homework assignment lets students explore how the mass of an object is determined using spring balances. Next they use the spring balance to determine the mass of an unknown object, and then find the gravity on Planet X.
http://phet.colorado.edu/en/contributions/view/2817
Do you ever wonder how a greenhouse gas affects the climate, or why the ozone layer is important? Use the new Molecules and Light sim to explore how light interacts with molecules in our atmosphere.
Move the sun, earth, moon and space station to see how it affects their gravitational forces and orbital paths. Visualize the sizes and distances between different heavenly bodies, and turn off gravity to see what would happen without it!
See our article in the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education’s online newsletter from the Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. Our Paper #7, entitled PhET Interactive Simulations: New tools for teaching and learning chemistry, describes our growing efforts to create and research interactive simulations for the teaching and learning of chemistry.
