Kitchen Labs and Simulations

One of the perceived drawbacks of online science courses is that there is usually no lab component.  But it does not have to be that way.  There are now many ways you can still incorporate hands-on science into an online course.

There are companies that sell kits that will have all the equipment (except what one can buy in a grocery store) and instructions for doing labs.  Including fetal pigs!!!  A kit for a course usually runs around $180 dollars - which is pretty reasonable considering that students do not have to drive to a campus to take a Saturday lab and the lab fees that one has to pay as on on-campus student.

The company that had a rep at the Parkland workshop was:
Labpaq

And the company that folks at Parkland actually use is:
eScience labs

At the workshop people also shared web sources for simulations and animations that they use for their science courses (incl. chemistry and physics).  I am listing some here because I think there are probably quite a few that we could use for our courses.

Molecular workbench - This is a free, open-source tool that creates and delivers visual, interactive simulations for teaching and learning science and engineering.

Chem Collective - from their website: "a collection of virtual labs, scenario-based learning activities, and concepts tests which can be incorporated into a variety of teaching approaches as pre-labs, alternatives to textbook homework, and in-class activities for individuals or teams. It is organized by a group of faculty and staff at Carnegie Mellon University for college and high school teachers who are interested in using, assessing, and/or creating engaging online activities for chemistry education"

PhET Interactive Science Simulations - a fellow workshop participant shared this with us.  It is super easy to use and there are some really interesting simulations here. 

learn.genetics.utah.edu - a resource with lots of animations, but also some experiments that can be done at home.

ExploreLearning - when you sign up you get access to vitual manipulatives (a.k.a. gizmos) - there is a 30 day free trial.  These gizmos are geared towards K-12 education.  To see how that would work check out one of the videos.