Your donation brings science to kids in your town and around the world.
So please consider:
|| if you're a teacher who uses a few sims
|| if you use more sims
|| for individual schools
|| for districts
All donations are tax deductible.
Thanks for your support!
AAPT Winter Meeting
February 4-8, 2012
San Diego, CA
March 25-29, 2012
San Diego, CA
June 24-27, 2012
University Park, PA
July 29 - August 2, 2012
In the Pipeline:
- PhET "Basic" series designed for middle-schoolers
- Fluid Pressure and Flow
- Balancing Act
- Molecule Shapes
(Real Molecules Tab)
- Plate Tectonics
Did you know you can install a local
PhET on your computer? And, we've improved our DVD installer to include the teaching activities along
the full suite of PhET sims. Ideal for computers that don't have internet access; all you need is a DVD
blank disks and an internet connection.
More PhET PodCasts
Check out our PhET podcasts.
Learn more about PhET's Energy Skate Park sim and the Masses & Springs simulations. Are there ideas that
you would like to
see in podcasts? Let us know.
We're excited to announce that PhET was selected as a
2011 Tech Award Laureate, and the recipient of the
Microsoft Education Tech Award $50,000 cash prize. The Tech Award - a signature
program of The Tech Museum in San Jose, CA - honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to
benefit humanity in 5 award categories: environment, economic development, equality, education and health. PhET was
selected from over 600 applications. Thanks to all our users for your continued support! Watch
PhET's Tech Laureaute
PhET Honored as 2011 Tech Award Laureate
Build a Molecule
Build a collection of molecules starting from atoms with the new Build a
Molecule sim. See how
you can build and see them in 3D! After the activity, students will be able to:
- Describe the differences between an atom and a molecule.
- Construct simple molecules from atoms.
- Recognize that the subscript in the molecular formula indicates the quantity of that atom in the
- Recognize that the coefficient indicates the total number of molecules.
And our research shows it works! Results from a study with 60 fifth graders showed that after
playing with the sim, students were able to accurately draw molecules and write chemical formulas
(even accurately writing and interpreting coefficients)!
Learn about Resonance with Harmonic Oscillators
For advanced undergraduate students: Observe resonance in a collection of driven, damped harmonic
oscillators. Vary the driving frequency and amplitude, the damping constant, and the mass and spring
constant of each resonator. Notice the long-lived transients when damping is small, and observe the
phase change for resonators above and below resonance. Students will be able to explain the conditions
required for resonance, identify variables that affect the natural frequency, distinguish between
natural and driving frequencies, and learn about real-world examples.
Check Out These Other New Simuations:
Meet Our Director:
Recently PhET director, Kathy Perkins, was featured on CU Connections. Here is an adaptation from her
interview. For the full transcript, see http://connections.cu.edu/news/five-questions-for-kathy-perkins/
Then I came to Colorado to focus on tropospheric chemistry. (The troposphere is where we all live.) But
I felt a longing to work on a project that had more immediate impact on people and their lives. The
university was advertising for a position of physics instructor who would also work in physics education
research. That was the first time I'd ever heard of this new - and still growing - field. It was
exciting and eye-opening for me to think that you could study how people learn science and take those
results and teach science more effectively. In 2003, I began working as a postdoctoral researcher with
Carl Wieman, working on the PhET project as well as co-teaching courses for non-science majors. Together
we would examine the course content and how it should be taught, and create an interactive lecture
experience using clickers and simulations. The idea was to tie the content to everyday life, improve
learning and make science relevant and interesting for students.
What got you involved in PhET?
I had always wanted to do something that would help society so I originally pursued using my science
background on environmental problems, specifically atmospheric science. For my graduate degree, I
studied ozone depletion and creating new instruments that would help measure chemical compounds
important in controlling ozone in the atmosphere.
What are the main goals of PhET?
PhET's mission is to advance science literacy and education worldwide through engaging, interactive
simulations. Each simulation offers an intuitive, game-like environment where students can engage in
exploration like a scientist would, and where they can see the invisible, so they can literally interact
with things like electrons, neutrons and protons to build their own atoms. Through the interaction and
the immediate feedback they get, they can develop an understanding of key science concepts such as
important cause-and-effect relationships and can build connections to everyday life. They can also
experiment with things they can't experiment with in everyday life, such as building molecules, changing
gravity, or shooting photons. With the Circuit Construction Kit simulation, for instance, students can
interact with a battery by easily increasing or decreasing the voltage with a slider and immediately see
how a light bulb gets brighter and electrons go faster when they increase the voltage. With the
simulations, students can develop a visual, mental model of what's happening.
What makes PhET different from other simulations?
One thing that makes the PhET project unique is that it's research-based. We take the published research and our
own research, digest it, and integrate it into the design. Our group studies the features of effective
simulations, how students learn from simulations, and use of simulations in the classroom. Right now, we have
about 15 people on the PhET team. It's a great team. Everyone is vested in making the best simulations possible,
simulations that are highly effective learning tools and are also fun for students. When we start a new
simulation, we create a design team with expertise across different areas. The team will have content
specialists, teachers who would use the simulation, design experts, an education researcher and professional
software developer. We brainstorm about the simulation. We storyboard the design and develop scenarios of what
students would be able to interact with. Once that's done, we start programming and test features as we go
along. For every simulation, we conduct interviews with students. During the "think-aloud" interview, we ask
them to open and play with everything and talk about what they are doing. We want to see whether students engage
with learning from the simulation and find out what is working and what is not. We always learn something, and
make revisions as necessary. It takes about four to nine months to complete a simulation.
Where does PhET funding come from?
Most of the funding comes from federal grants and foundations. We want the PhET project to be sustainable for
the long-term, however, so we're trying to increase the number of corporate and individual donations. Companies
are allowed to use the simulations for free. Pearson, for instance, uses them in textbooks and in their online
homework system. We're working to develop an NPR-like model where companies sponsor the project in lieu of a
licensing fee, so that we can create more simulations and improve the sustainability of the project. We are also
trying to develop a micro-donation model so that individuals can donate small amounts. Every year, 22 million
simulations are run from our website and in 5 years we expect this number to be more than 100 million.
Eventually, micro-donations could help fund a significant fraction of the budget.
This interview was conducted by Cynthia Pasquale for CU connections,
where it originally appeared and from which it is reused with permission
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