Providing hands-on practical education without access to laboratories during the COVID-19 pandemic has required creativity and innovation. In this paper, co-authored by academic staff and students, we describe an at-home mobile phone-based 'spectrophotometer' experiment used in an introductory undergraduate biology course. Using colour picker…

This case study examines students' perception, motivation, and learning gain of a teaching unit featuring wireless sensors as tools to collect scientific data in the classroom. Students analyze data using the corresponding cellphone app, communicate findings to the class, and learn about a changing environment. Wireless sensors are produced for…

Science education at different levels can be supported by various mobile applications that can be downloaded for free onto mobile phones, tablets, and other devices. Such applications can also be used in laboratory work, but it must be said that their use in science laboratories is a relatively new approach. This study is aimed at determining the…

The natural sciences, by their very nature, are based on the exploration of the physical world, and digital mobile devices are considered appropriate to support this exploration (Suárez et al., 2018) since they offer the tools that make this investigation more accessible but also ubiquitous (Crompton et al., 2017). Inquiry-based learning is a…

The COVID-19 pandemic has constituted a sudden educational transformation around the world. It has disrupted instructors, including physics educators, forcing them to adjust to remote teaching. The hands-on laboratory, one of the components of physics instruction, has also had to rapidly go online in all branches of this science, including nuclear…

Practical work as observation and experimentation are vital parts of science education. One way to accomplish this is by applying inquiry-based learning in laboratory activities. Inquiry enhances the development of scientific skills as well as the learning of the scientific concepts. In the present article, a laboratory activity was developed to…

Traditionally, laboratory practice aims to establish schemas learned by students in theoretical courses through concrete experiences. However, access to laboratories might not always be available to students. Therefore, it is advantageous to diversify the tools that students could use to train practical skills. This technology report describes the…

The aim of the present research is to determine the current situation in the readiness levels of 11th grade high school students for self-directed learning, to examine the effectiveness of laboratory activities developed with with mobile technology integrated into the 5E learning model in various chemistry subjects on students' self-directed…

Smartphone-based experimental exercises were incorporated as part of the homework problems in an introductory mechanics course at a university. A quasi-experimental field study with two cohorts design was performed to measure the impact of such exercises on motivation, interest and conceptual understanding. The empirical results on learning…

We present our experience with transferring a four-day photometry and dye-adsorption laboratory experiment to the kitchens of students of Applied Thermodynamics from our degree in "Industrial Chemical Process Engineering". The students designed and built a double-beam photometer using their smartphones and household materials, then…

Due to the coronavirus lockdown, home experiments were devised for our first-year physics lab course. In this practitioner contribution we elaborate on the guided inquiries that were set up. Students could carry out the experiments with standard tools available at home, including sensors mobile phones are equipped with. Various design principles…

Lab-based learning is an essential part of any undergraduate chemistry curriculum as it incorporates necessary and required hands-on experiential learning. However, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many students are learning from home, rendering laboratory instruction a particular challenge. Options for educators include third party virtual…

Several suggestions for the use of Mobile Phone (MP) sensors in science teaching are found in the literature, and most of them focus on proposing physics experiments that can be conducted with the aid of the sensors that commonly exist in smartphones. The proposed experiments rely on the Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD) approach, that is, students…

We measure the vertical velocities of elevators, pedestrians climbing stairs, and drones (flying unmanned aerial vehicles), by means of smartphone pressure sensors. The barometric pressure obtained with the smartphone is related to the altitude of the device via the hydrostatic approximation. From the altitude values, vertical velocities are…

In biology education which is an inseparable discipline of medical and veterinary education, it is of great importance that enabling students to make practice in real conditions and gain knowledge and skills related to their professional fields during their education. It is necessary to adapt the new technologies rapidly to education rather than…