After more student testing, we’ve improved the Gravity and Orbits sim as well as fixed some bugs. (If you find more, please let us know!) Grab the planet and change the planet-star distance or the planet’s velocity, and explore how that impacts the orbit.
Register now for a free live webinar on May 10 at 8 PM ET. Here’s some information on what we’re going to cover:
Using PhET simulations for Science Inquiry: Free, researched, web-based resources
Trish Loeblein, PhET K12 Specialist and Evergreen HS Teacher
Kathy Perkins, Director, PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado
Do you want to help your students make sense of science using inquiry? Interactive simulations can help students develop their ideas through life-like investigations and inquiry-based lessons. The PhET Interactive Simulations project at the University of Colorado provides a free website of research-based simulations that are designed to support student learning through active engagement. We have simulations like Energy Skate Park, Salts and Solubility, Gas Properties, Density, Circuit Construction Kit, and Build an Atom. This webinar will offer an opportunity to explore some of the PhET sims and collaborate with other webinar participants to investigate productive ways to incorporate PhET sims in your curriculum. Also, you will learn about how to access lesson plans that PhET team members and other teachers have used and submitted to our Teaching Ideas database.
Try our new Balancing Chemical Equations sim.
How do you know if a chemical equation is balanced? What can you change to balance an equation? Play a game to test your ideas!
We are collecting stories about how PhET is impacting education. Do you have a story about how PhET helped you or your students? If so, e-mail kathryn.dessau@colorado.edu. We’d love to hear about it and spread the news.
PhET is looking for middle school teachers who would be willing to provide occasional feedback to help us develop new and revised simulations specifically targeted at 5th-8th grade students. To participate click here (http://www.colorado.edu/sei/surveys/Sp11/MS-survey.html ) to fill out a short (<1 minute) survey then we’ll contact you with specific questions in the future.
After more student testing, we’ve improved the Buoyancy sim. And, don’t forget that you can lift the blocks out of the water by using the underwater scale.
Watch different types of molecules form a solid, liquid or gas. Add or remove heat and watch the phase change. Change the temperature or volume of a container and see a pressure-temperature diagram respond in real time. Relate the interaction potential to the forces between molecules.
