How To Use PhET in a high school Chemistry classroom
Accessing PhET
1. Click here to go to the site. You will get to the home page that looks like the following:
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| Figure 1: Home page of PhET |
2. Click on "Play with sims...>" indicated by the pink arrow in figure 1. This leads you to the page with all simulations. Once you get to the page, you will see a list on the left hand side. Look for "Chemistry" under simulations. Click on it and you will get to the page shown by figure 2. There are 39 general chemistry simulations and 10 quantum chemistry simulations.
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| Figure 2: Finding Chemistry under list of simulations |
3. Scroll down toward the bottom of the page. Find the simulation titled "Reactions & Rates". A snapshot of the simulation window is shown along with a brief description on the right hand side. You can either download the simulation or "run now!". Under teaching resources, you can find the main topics that can be covered using this simulation.
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| Figure 3: Reactions & Rates simulation |
4. Scroll down the page to find more teaching resources: Sample learning goals, tips for teachers, teaching ideas shown in figure 4.
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| Figure 4: Simulation Teaching Resources |
Tips for teachers: click here to access the "tips for teachers" page for the reaction & rates simulations. This page shows non obvious controls, important modeling notes and simulations, insights into student use/thinking and suggestions for sim use.
Teaching ideas: Under teaching ideas, sample lessons submitted can be viewed by clicking on individual links. The level (middle/high school/university" and type (demo, hw, lab etc.) can be seen.
Traslated versions, software requirements and credits are at the bottom of the page.
5. Make sure you meet the software requirements and click "download" or "run now" to open the simulation. Open the simulation and you will see something similar to figure 5. Click on the tabs at the top indicated by the pink arrow to change the tab/activity you want to do.
This simulation can be used to cover any lesson related to reactions, kinetics, concentration and equilibrium. A sample lesson on factors that affect reaction rates using this simulation can be found here.
Uses in Classrooms
Lecture:
Sims can be used as animated illustrations during lecture. One use is using sims as interactive classroom demonstrations. Another use is using sims as concept tests (Wieman, 2010). For concept tests, the teacher asks a question, students vote the answer using clicker systems or other methods. The teacher can pose a scenario or central event and ask a central question. Students write down their hypothesis or predictions. Think peer share can be used as a collaborative learning strategy. Students think individually, write it down, share with a peer or share in groups. The teacher can ask each group to come up with a consensus prediction and pick on certain groups to share out. Then the teacher runs the simulation and ask students to write down and discuss what actually happened and how it was similar or different to their predictions. Then the teacher holds a whole class discussion about what the students saw and why it makes sense.
Group Activities:
Students work in pairs or groups in a computer lab and manipulate the sims on their own. This type of classroom activity encourage students to "explore the behaviors of sims, reason through their ideas and develop corresponding mental models" (Wieman, 2010). An example activity is to give students a challenge problem to solve related to a topic covered by the PhET sims. Students predict what will happen, then test it with the simulation to confirm or reject their predictions and adjust their thinking approach if necessarily.
Homework:
The sims could be first introduced in class in lecture and/or group activities for students to first become familiar with them. Then the teacher can assign sim based homework problems. The homework can be follow up questions to what is covered in lecture and lab or it can be used to provide introduction exploration into a topic before that topic is covered in class. The design of the simulations uses a guided inquiry approach without the presence of a teacher (Wieman 2010). The simulations allow teachers to ask questions beyond what is possible in a standard homework problem using textbooks by having students explain phenomenon that is related but different from what is seen in class or in textbook.
Laboratory:
Simulations allow students to perform experiments that are not practical or cannot be done with real equipments. It also allows students to quickly repeat the experiment for multiple trials and allow students to change the variable to test. For example, students can explore on the photoelectric effect in an experiment using the photoelectric effect simulation shown in figure 6. The photoelectric effect simulation shows different intensities and colors of light. Electrons are emitted with different intensities and different wavelengths. The original parameters can be changed quickly.
5. Make sure you meet the software requirements and click "download" or "run now" to open the simulation. Open the simulation and you will see something similar to figure 5. Click on the tabs at the top indicated by the pink arrow to change the tab/activity you want to do.
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| Figure 5: Simulation Window |
Uses in Classrooms
Lecture:
Sims can be used as animated illustrations during lecture. One use is using sims as interactive classroom demonstrations. Another use is using sims as concept tests (Wieman, 2010). For concept tests, the teacher asks a question, students vote the answer using clicker systems or other methods. The teacher can pose a scenario or central event and ask a central question. Students write down their hypothesis or predictions. Think peer share can be used as a collaborative learning strategy. Students think individually, write it down, share with a peer or share in groups. The teacher can ask each group to come up with a consensus prediction and pick on certain groups to share out. Then the teacher runs the simulation and ask students to write down and discuss what actually happened and how it was similar or different to their predictions. Then the teacher holds a whole class discussion about what the students saw and why it makes sense.
Group Activities:
Students work in pairs or groups in a computer lab and manipulate the sims on their own. This type of classroom activity encourage students to "explore the behaviors of sims, reason through their ideas and develop corresponding mental models" (Wieman, 2010). An example activity is to give students a challenge problem to solve related to a topic covered by the PhET sims. Students predict what will happen, then test it with the simulation to confirm or reject their predictions and adjust their thinking approach if necessarily.
Homework:
The sims could be first introduced in class in lecture and/or group activities for students to first become familiar with them. Then the teacher can assign sim based homework problems. The homework can be follow up questions to what is covered in lecture and lab or it can be used to provide introduction exploration into a topic before that topic is covered in class. The design of the simulations uses a guided inquiry approach without the presence of a teacher (Wieman 2010). The simulations allow teachers to ask questions beyond what is possible in a standard homework problem using textbooks by having students explain phenomenon that is related but different from what is seen in class or in textbook.
Laboratory:
Simulations allow students to perform experiments that are not practical or cannot be done with real equipments. It also allows students to quickly repeat the experiment for multiple trials and allow students to change the variable to test. For example, students can explore on the photoelectric effect in an experiment using the photoelectric effect simulation shown in figure 6. The photoelectric effect simulation shows different intensities and colors of light. Electrons are emitted with different intensities and different wavelengths. The original parameters can be changed quickly.
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| Figure 6: Photoelectric effect simulation |
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