"How does an aircraft fly?" is one of the most frequently asked science questions by young pupils. The lift on airplane wings also makes a great example of the application of the Bernoulli principle while teaching fluid mechanics in introductory physics and engineering courses. The topic is of great interest and is therefore covered in…

EvoluZion is a forward-in-time genetic simulator developed in Java and designed to perform real time simulations on the evolutionary history of virtual organisms. These model organisms harbour a set of 13 genes that codify an equal number of phenotypic features. These genes change randomly during replication, and mutant genes can have null,…

A prior study showed that students best make predictions about the outcome of opening a valve between two flasks containing a fluid or vacuum when they view both a demonstration video and a particulate animation, but the study showed no influence from the order in which these visualizations were used. The purpose of this current research was to…

The Web is now a standard tool for information access and dissemination in higher education. The prospect of Web-based, simulated learning platforms and technologies, however, remains underexplored. We have developed a Web-based tutorial program (ChemVoyage) for a third-year organic chemistry class on the topic of pericyclic reactions to…

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…

This report describes a study that investigated the relationship between mental imagery and problem solving in physics, specifically in kinematics. A distinction is made between visual imagery and spatial imagery used in solving physics problems. The results of this study indicate that while spatial imagery may promote problem solving success, the…

A Particulate Nature of Matter Evaluation Tests was used to explore the effect of computer animations depicting the particulate nature of matter on (n=400) college students' mental models and comprehension of chemical phenomena. Treatment groups received significantly higher conceptual understanding scores than did the control group. (30…

Multimedia technology is an invaluable teaching and learning resource. One advantage of technology based education is the ability to combine practical applications, visualization of complex mathematical and abstract subjects, virtual labs, and guided use of simulation software. This article describes several multimedia tutorials for…

Two studies with students in grades 7 to 10, explored whether adolescents can and will construct abstract visualizations to structure complex information. Experiment 1 showed students can construct novel information with visualizations. Experiment 2 showed that students will analogically transfer specific visualizations and will transfer the…

A low-cost (US$350) satellite receiving station was assembled and operated within a classroom environment in Gainesville (Florida) on October 2001 for acquiring satellite data directly from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellites. The simplicity of the satellite signal makes this source of real-time satellite data readily…

Although structural analysis is a fundamental subject in civil engineering, its abstract concepts and the difficulty in visualizing them pose problems for students. This article examines the application of virtual reality (VR) to civil engineering. Describes the design, development, and evaluation of a VR-based learning center for a structural…