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Physics Education Technology - University of Colorado, Boulder
PhET Blog

Play at the Skate Park—the PhET Energy Skate Park


Energy Skate Park

Raining outside? Can’t get to the skate park? Learn about energy conservation while playing in this virtual skate park. Keep learning over the summer with this fun simulation.

Tuesday

Jun 4

2013

Teaching Chemistry? Try Our New Sim Alignment Guide

Chemistry-Sim-Curriculum-Alignment

Teaching chemistry? To help you find the best simulation for teaching a specific topic in chemistry, we’ve put together this new preliminary guide that gives you a line up of specific simulations (and supplemental simulations) for topic areas in the general chemistry curriculum.

Want to share suggestions of other PhET sims you use for teaching chemistry topics? Let us know at the PhET Help Desk at phethelp@colorado.edu.

Wednesday

May 29

2013

Scheduled Maintenance: Friday, May 24, 2013 at 6:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time

We will be upgrading the PhET servers on Friday, May 24 at 6:00 PM Mountain Daylight Time. We expect that the maintenance will last only 30 minutes. During this time, PhET (http://phet.colorado.edu) may experience periods of unavailability. If you experience persistent issues, please e-mail the PhET Help Desk at phethelp@colorado.edu.

Thanks for your patience during our system maintenance.

Thursday

May 23

2013

May Newsletter: PhET Working on Two Big Initiatives


Screenshot of the May 2013 PhET newsletter

Have you received our May 2013 newsletter? Learn about two big initiatives that we’re working on over the summer: a new “Teach with PhET” companion website designed for teachers and other education professionals, and the development of the next-generation of PhET simulations.

Join us and support PhET. Your dollars will go directly to helping with these important improvements. Donate to PhET’s End-of-School Campaign today.

Didn’t receive the newsletter? Sign up at our website.

Tuesday

May 21

2013

Improved Fluid Pressure and Flow


Fluid Pressure and Flow

A big Shout Out to Bernard LaCour who pointed out a bug in Fluid Pressure and Flow. As soon as we heard about the problem, we addressed the issue and posted the fix. We know how important it is to correct any issue with our simulations. So if you find a problem, please let us know through the PhET Help Desk at phethelp@colorado.edu.

Thank you Bernard!

Thursday

May 16

2013

Snell’s Law and Bending Light Activities


Bending Light

With Spring finally here and rainbows soon to follow, explore PhET’s Bending Light simulation and learn why rainbows are ROYGBIV.

Friday

May 10

2013

PhET Attends NCTM Conference in Denver


Graphing Lines

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booth at the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Annual Meeting in Denver this past April. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting with all the math teachers and having the opportunity to share the awesome free resource that is PhET! In addition, we were grateful for being a featured component of several talks, such as Mark Roddy’s discussion about Mathematizing the World. We look forward to the next NCTM Conference in New Orleans, April 9-12, 2014, and meeting even more great educators. We are excited to expand our suite of math simulations, so look for more coming soon!

Monday

May 6

2013

PhET Team Member, Trish Loeblein, Receives American Chemistry Society 2013 ACS Colorado High School Teaching Award!

Trishphoto

We’re excited to announce our very own Trish Loeblein, PhET K-12 Specialist, was honored to receive the ACS 2013 Colorado High School Teaching Award.

Trish has taught all levels of science including chemistry, physics and math, including many AP courses. Trish was recognized because she “brings an enormous energy to the classroom” and “goes out of her way to teach difficult concepts in a more tangible manner, a skill which is necessary for challenging chemistry and physics courses.”

Congratulations Trish!

Tuesday

Apr 30

2013

New Simulation: Energy Forms and Changes


Energy Forms and Changes

We’re excited to add our last Java-based simulation, Energy Forms and Changes. Explore how heating and cooling iron, brick, and water adds or removes energy. See how energy is transferred between objects. Build your own system, with energy sources, changers, and users. Track and visualize how energy flows and changes through your system.

Wednesday

Apr 24

2013

Scheduled Downtime: Friday, April 19, 2013 at 5:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time

We will be upgrading the PhET server on Friday, April 19 at 5:30 PM Mountain Daylight Time. During this time, PhET (http://phet.colorado.edu) will experience periods of unavailability. We expect that the outage will last only 30 minutes and that we will be back online very quickly. However, if you experience issues, please e-mail the PhET Help Desk at phethelp@colorado.edu.

Thanks for your patience during our system upgrade.

Thursday

Apr 18

2013