PhET Blog

We are excited to now have individual HTML5 sim pages where you can easily access sample learning goals (under About), Teacher Tips and Activities (under For Teachers), Related Simulations, and Software Requirements. With the new pulldown menus, everything about the simulation is on a single screen. There’s also a link to conveniently access the corresponding original JAVA/Flash sims and their translations.

And don’t forget to help bring more improvements and HTML5 sims by donating at:

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Thanks for your support!

Have you seen our Spring 2015 newsletter? We’re looking for inspirational stories on how PhET has affected you, or your students. Share them with us here. And, learn about new websites improvements that we’ll be rolling out over the summer.

Join Director, Kathy Perkins, and 90 other participants of the Learning Sciences and Online Learning Symposium on May 21-22, 2015. The symposium will be livestreamed at: http://lsol.mit.edu/live/. Sessions begin at 9am EDT on Thursday, May 21 and run through 12:30pm EDT on Friday, May 22. Ask questions via the web or from Twitter using the hashtag #LSOL2015.

The ability to balance chemical equations is a foundational skill in chemistry. This week Yuen-ying Carpenter, Emily Moore, and Director, Kathy Perkins will be available to discuss employing guided-inquiry activities along with PhET simulations to teach students skills in balancing chemical equations. Please join the discussion at http://confchem.ccce.divched.org/2015SpringConfChem

Using an Interactive Simulation to Support Development of Expert Practices for Balancing Chemical Equations

We’re presenting PhET’s work May 11-15 in the NSF 2015 Teaching and Learning Video Showcase. View our video and browse the more than 100 other great videos about STEM teaching and learning. You can even join the conversation by posing questions to presenters. Vote for your favorites with the “Public Choice”. Winners will be announced on Monday May 18th.

Want to learn more about how to use visualizations—animations and simulations— in chemistry education? This conference will discuss a range of topics in the study of chemistry visualizations, providing insights into: problem solving practices; student ownership; multi-model learning; and inclusive chemistry learning. Each week there are two “assigned” papers for reading, and then an open discussion period where participants can post questions and engage in a public discussion with the authors. Join us for some or all of the conference:

Time: Friday, May 8th 9 PM through Friday, June 4th 9 PM
Link: http://confchem.ccce.divched.org/2015SpringConfChem

PhET will be featured during:

May 15-21
Using an Interactive Simulation to Support Development of Expert Practices for Balancing Chemical Equations
Yuen-ying Carpenter, Emily B. Moore, and Katherine K. Perkins

May 29-June 4
Designing Accessible Interactive Chemistry Simulations
Emily B. Moore

The PhET team would like offer our sincerest gratitude to all the dedicated educators of the world. Thanks for inspiring your students to reach their peak! #ThankATeacher

Congratulations to Conifer Chemistry Teacher and PhET K12 Specialist, Trish Loeblein, on her retirement from teaching!

Trish has been a dedicated teacher for over 30 years, and a member of the PhET team for the last 10, helping design over 50 simulations and contributing over 130 guided-inquiry-based activities along with many teacher resources! Her activities are the most popular in our database with more than 900,000 downloads in the past year. In addition, she has run numerous teacher workshops and webinars, both locally and nationally. Over her many years of teaching, Trish has touched thousands of students focusing on their learning, specifically understanding and learning to think, NOT just memorization.

Thanks Trish for inspiring a generation of students! And while the students will certainly miss you in the classroom, we are excited that you will continue to work part-time with PhET! #ThankaTeacher

In honor of #ThankaTeacher week, PhET would like to thank Prof. Martin Veillette. Martin comes to us from Berea College where he is an associate professor of physics, teaching courses across the physics curriculum, from astronomy to quantum mechanics. He has been an avid user of PhET simulations as an instructor and this year he has been with us working as a software developer, learning the tools of the trade during his sabbatical leave. During his time at PhET, he partnered with Amanda McGarry to create the brand new #HTML5 sim Least Squares Regression. He also worked on the upcoming #HTML5 Charges and Fields and Pinko Probability.  When he’s not teaching physics, you can see him in “creeking” in the streams of Kentucky. Thanks Martin!