Background: Engagement with particle-level simulations can help students visualize the motion and interactions of gas particles, thus helping them develop a more scientifically accurate mental model. Such engagement outside of class prior to formal instruction can help meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds and provide instructors…

The goal of the study is to create Visual Basic and MATHCAD apps to create programs that show the core force using physical forces as an example. The research subjects are high school teachers and students; the inherent context is high school STEM courses. Programs for computer visualization have been developed, and theoretical investigations have…

Central to evolution is the concept of a common ancestry from which all life has emerged over immense time scales, but learning and teaching temporal aspects of evolution remain challenging. This study investigated students' interpretation of evolutionary time when engaging with a multi-touch tabletop application called DeepTree, a dynamic…

Computational techniques have great potential to improve the teaching-learning. In this work, we used a computational strategy to visualize three-dimensional (3D) structures of proteins and DNA and help the student to comprehend biochemistry concepts such as protein structure and function, substrate, and inhibitors as well as DNA structural…

Research into the efficacy of modules featuring dynamic visualizations, case studies, and interactive learning environments is reported here. This quasi-experimental 2-year study examined the implementation of three interactive computer-based instructional modules within a curricular unit covering cellular biology concepts in an introductory high…

Thermodynamic processes are complex phenomena that can be understood as a set of successive stages. When treating processes, classical thermodynamics (and most particularly, the Gibbsian formulation, predominantly used in chemistry) only pays attention to initial and final states. However, reintroducing the notion of process is absolutely…

This paper describes an interactive tool for analysis of data from the ATLAS experiment taking place at the world's highest energy particle collider at CERN. The tool, called HYPATIA/applet, enables students of various levels to become acquainted with particle physics and look for discoveries in a similar way to that of real research.

The introduction of modern high-speed cameras in physics teaching provides a tool not only for easy visualization, but also for quantitative analysis of many simple though fast occurring phenomena. As an example, we present a very well-known demonstration experiment--sometimes also discussed in the context of falling chimneys--which is commonly…

The greatest difficulty that is encountered by students in thermodynamics classes is to find relationships between variables and to solve a total differential equation that relates one thermodynamic state variable to two mutually independent state variables. Rules of differentiation, including the total differential and the cyclic rule, are…

Dynamic visualizations have the potential to make abstract scientific phenomena more accessible and visible to students, but they can also be confusing and difficult to comprehend. This research investigates how dynamic visualizations, compared to static illustrations, can support middle school students in developing an integrated understanding of…

Three-dimensional visualization is helpful in understanding soils, and three dimensional (3-D) tools are gaining popularity in teaching earth sciences. Those tools are still somewhat underused in soil science, yet soil properties such as texture, color, and organic carbon content vary both vertically and horizontally across the landscape. These…

Dynamic visualizations of scientific phenomena have the potential to transform how students learn and understand science. Dynamic visualizations enable interaction and experimentation with unobservable atomic-level phenomena. A series of studies clarify the conditions under which embedding dynamic visualizations in technology-enhanced inquiry…

In these studies, a vegetable can containing fluid was swung as a pendulum by supporting its end-lips with a pair of knife edges. The motion was measured with a capacitive sensor and the logarithmic decrement in free decay was estimated from computer-collected records. Measurements performed with nine different homogeneous liquids, distributed…

Since their introduction into schools, educators have tried to utilize computers in classes in order to make difficult topics more comprehensible. Chemistry educators, when faced with the task of teaching a topic that cannot be taught through experiments in a laboratory, resort to computers to help students visualize difficult concepts and…

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…