Simulations

A week behind and trying to get caught up... but the simulations were great.  I made it through the ones in the book that seem to pertain to my curriculum areas.  I think I'll have to print off the ones from the comment page -- there are so many!!

I started with Gizmos at Explore Learning and probably shouldn't have.  They look wonderful and I can see a lot of differentiated instruction time with these for both science and math.  Unfortunately something this wonderful is probably going to be spendy (especially if they give quotes by building or district size).  I'm waiting for my classroom quote from the region rep. before I get too excited about it (but it did look really cool).

PBS Try it Out was okay but pretty basic.  I did like the tech timeline, it was interesting and might be a good lead in for out tech design unit.

Learning Science had a great simulation for the geologic timeline from the U Cal. Museum of Paleontology.  It hits a number of concepts from my Earth history unit.  In the Biology are I looked at a genotype/phenotype simulation with dragons but it was a bit complicated.  The Zoo Matchmaker gives some hands on examples of breeding and inbreeding with tigers but you'd have to have definite goals for the simulation.  It took some time to complete the four generations.  Mendal's Peas looked like it would be really good for cross-breeding simulations.  I like that they had an activity at the end to practice the concepts.  The Tech Design section looked like it had good stuff for that unit but I need to wander around in it longer.

johnkyrk.com site had an impressive evolutionary time line but you can't see the whole thing on one screen and it could be a bit of a visual overload.  Also, I try to steer away from the human/primate portion of evolution if possible.  The meiosis simulation isn't too bad.

U of Colo. site, or Phet site had some interesting stuff.  I've wandered around in there a little before.  I like that some of the simulations are about things my students are already into, like skateboarding and force.  Unfortunately there's not a lot in there that hits my particular curriculum.

Love the simulations, off to find some more.