Using Edmark's Virtual Electricity Lab demo to teach elementary scienceby Alan Zisman (c) 2003, 2011Most elementaryschoolscience curriculums include a unit on electrical circuits. In BC(Canada), for instance, it is expected to be included in grade 5.Unfortunately,lettingyoung children have hands on experience with electric circuits can bedifficult. Aside from the danger of shock, setting up for electricityexperiments can involve managing a lot of small parts, and dealing withinevitable breakage, making it an expensive unit at a time when mostschool budgets are limited.Computersmake itpossible to simulate electric circuits. While virtual experiments are(inevitably) one step removed from the real thing, they are vastlybetter than no experiments at all.Softwarecompany Edmark - now owned by publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - markets severalvirtual science kits andother educational programs.
Virtual Labs Electricity Full Free Download Free
In the past, they made of some of their educational programs available;typically, these are more limited than the full versions, anddon't allow students to save their projects - the list of availabledemos changes from time to time. Nevertheless, these freeversions are fun for students to use; the demo science labs, forinstance, can be used for scienceexperiments that can be completed in a single period.I amfocussing on usingthe demo version of the Virtual Electricity Lab. I am re-distributingthe free demo ofversion which is currently not listed on the Edmark/Riverview site; itis about a 6 MB download. While it was created in the 1990s for Windows9x, in my experience, it installs and runs without issue on more modernversions of Windows.Studentscan explore thelab- there is a 'Sci-clopedia' with lots of background informationabout electricity, and lots of pre-made circuits to playwith.Most students quickly become comfortable using the programs smallnumber of tools to create and modify circuits.
Teachers consideringusing the program should take some time to explore its interface,learning how to add and remove components, connect them with (virtual)wire, etc. Rotating components may take a bit of practise.The program (including the free demo version)can alsobe used to teach electric-circuit concepts, with teacher-directedlessons. I print handouts, asking students to write in the answers inpen or pencil, and discuss the concepts with the class before and afterthey carry out the experiments.Lesson 1:Lesson 2:Lesson 3:Lesson 4:You are welcome to reprint, revise, and usethesesample lessons with your own classes. I welcome feedback; if youdevelop other lessons using Virtual Electricity Lab, I would love totake a look at them- and will post them on this site if you like. AndI would love to have other teachers develop lessons using the VirtualKinetics or Virtual Light labs.Note: as the moment(February 2005), the Virtual Electricity Lab is not available fordownload on the Edmark.com website, as far as I can tell. You can.- az June 17, 2003.