PhET Blog

Visit our Research page to see what kind of research we do around PhET simulations.

Excited that PhET Director Kathy Perkins will be speaking today at the 2015 Next Generation STEM Learning for All Forum

Assistive Technologies for Learning: Broadening Participation in STEM
Room: Salon 2
Jenna Gorlewicz, Ethan Danahy, Kathy Perkins, Donna Lange, and Richard Ladner
Technology has propelled personalized learning for students and has expanded our ability to understand and address disability-based differences in STEM education and workforce participation. Learn about innovative technologies, resources, and research discoveries that can contribute to a learner-centered climate for students with disabilities. How can these approaches become broadly integrated into next generation STEM schools?

Our volunteer translators have been busy and Hooke’s Law (just recently published) is already available in five languages. More to come…and more HTML5 simulations coming soon, too!

PhET as an Open Education Resource is excited about the US Department of Education’s new #GoOpen Campaign that encourages states, districts, schools, and teachers to use openly licensed educational resources.

For more info, see: http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-launches-campaign-encourage-schools-goopen-educational-resources

We are excited to bring the first (of many) translated #HTML5 simulations. Molarity in Peruvian Spanish is now available at https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/molarity/latest/molarity_es_PE.html. We along with many volunteer translators worked hard over the summer to get the translation utility ready. Look for many more #HTML5 translated sims to come!

In the new ‪#‎HTML5‬ Hooke’s Law simulation, students can flexibly explore relationships between applied force, spring force, spring constant, and displacement as they stretch and compress springs. They can simultaneously compare two different springs, or compare systems of springs connected in series and parallel. On the Energy screen, students can investigate force and energy plots and discover the effect of the spring constant and displacement on the potential energy stored in the spring.

See how we are working on making PhET sims accessible in this slideshare.

Have you seen the video primer for Balancing Chemical Equations? See how to use the Intro and Game panels as well as how you can use the simulation to challenge your students.

See Area Builder‘s video primer to learn about how you can use this sim to teach students about area and perimeter. Students can explore with rectangular and irregular shapes, discover the relationship between area and perimeter, and apply fractional knowledge as they build shapes with a given area and perimeter.

Try the HTML5 Fraction Matcher simulation. Under For Teachers see the video primer to learn about Fraction Matcher’s features and uses. Need an activity? Scroll down to see  the Teacher-Submitted Activities. Don’t forget that as a teacher, you’ll need to “Sign In” to access these features.