(Phet Screenshot, 2023)
Hello Everyone!!
As you may know I am working on my Master's to become a Media Specialist, who is still working in the science classroom, I wanted to introduce to you, if you haven’t heard of it before, the PHET Simulation Website created by the University of Colorado Boulder! As we all know, technology is constantly advancing which means, “school librarians are entering another period of Radical Change as they combine their information specialist roles with technology integration” (Wine, 2016, p. 207). Therefore, this resource will take you into fun and collaborative materials that help your students apply what they have learned in your classroom.
After reading this BlogShare and you want a little more detail, then hop over to this website:
https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/knowledge-centered-tools/phet-simulations/
PHET is an online simulation website that is available to all. You can sign up with your school email to allocate the resources other teachers make that go along with the simulation. Most of these simulations apply to Science and Math teachers; however, there seems to be more options for science teachers.
(Phet Screenshot, 2023)
Above shows what categories they have as options to choose from.
Today, I wanted to show you an example of what they have in the Earth Science tab.
(IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You must have an updated version of JAVA on your computer because it will not run the simulation.)
Recently, my students have been studying Plate Tectonics Theory and Plate Boundaries in reference to Alfred Wegner and Harry Hess. They have learned the evidence behind the theory and are now looking into the functions of plate boundaries and what landforms they create. The best thing about this website is that you do not need to make any materials that go with the simulation. Check out the pictures below:
(Phet Screenshot, 2023)
To get to this website, you can go to: https://phet.colorado.edu/ or you can type in the topic and put “phet simulation” after the topic in a Google search to make it easy. As you can see, PHET gives you Learning Goals, Teaching Resources, Activities, and Translations (which is perfect for your ESOL students).
(Phet Screenshot, 2023)
Here I clicked on the Teacher Resources tab. On this tab, it will not only give you teacher tips, but also alignment documents that particularly align with middle and high school. When you click on each document it will pop up with a certain standard along with the topic and PHET Simulation that will aid in further mastery of the content. It helps tremendously with writing your lesson plans.
(Phet Screenshot, 2023)
The biggest help from this website is the Activities tab. Here you can see that these are all teacher submitted activities. There is the level to pick from, the type of lesson it can be, and the subject that it can be used for in your units. I love that they have updated it to where you can search by language. Also with these activities, you can download them and edit them to better help your students that are at various levels, as well. Perfect for differentiation!!!
Watch this Video or share it with your students before you get started with your activity. It is a great run through of how everything works in this simulation!!!
This is just a fraction of how this website can be used. Teachers, administration, and students can all use this to not only have a fun and engaging time working with each other, but it can also be a great review of the content that was already taught. As Johnston states, “effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information and present it professionally” (Johnston, 2012, p. 2).
Please let me know if you want one on one help with this resource or if you need me to come into your classroom and run a workshop for your students! I am here to help!
References
Johnston, M. P. (2012). School librarians as technology integration leaders: Enablers and barriers to leadership enactment. School Library Research, 15.
University of Colorado Boulder. (2023). Plate tectonics - crust | Lithosphere | Mantle. [screenshots] PhET. https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/plate-tectonics/about
University of Massachusetts Amherst. (n.d.). PhET simulations | Online tools for teaching & learning. UMass Blogs. https://blogs.umass.edu/onlinetools/knowledge-centered-tools/phet-simulations/
Wine, L. (2016). School librarians as technology leaders: An evolution in practice. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science. 57(2), 207-220.
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