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Virtual Science Labs: Effective or Not?
By Courtney Nelson
Debate on Virtual Labs
The world today is becoming more
and more technologically related. Schools
are involving more ways to use the internet
and other online systems and software. I
am sure we all know what a science class is
and in this age of technology and I am sure
we all know what virtual things are, but
think about a virtual science class. Would
we learn more or would we just slack off
because it is online? I am sure most
students usually end up on Facebook. I
know from experience when I am working
on my organic chemistry lab reports (which
we have to do in Word and turn in online) I
sometimes get distracted and end up on
Facebook talking to someone about other
things that do not relate to school.
Some online things cause major
problems, I think, in the use of virtual labs.
You could have anything from the software
not installing properly, computer freezes,
and any other technical difficulties. Now if
you put the virtual stuff together with a
hands-on lab, you could get the effects of
both. If your computer messes up in the lab,
you still have the results from the hands-on
part and the same the other way around.
On October 20, 2006, a writer named Sam
Dillion wrote an article for the NY Times
titled, “No Test Tubes? Debate on Virtual
Science Classes.” Dillion discussed some of
the things that have preceded the start of
using virtual chemistry labs. He wrote,
“When the Internet was just beginning to
shake up American education, a chemistry
professor photographed thousands of test
tubes holding molecular solutions and,
workings with video game designers,
created a simulated laboratory that allowed
students to mix chemicals in virtual beakers
and watch the reactions.” Now that would
be cool to see how crazy some reactions go
about when you mix two compounds
together.
Mixing
something
like
hydrochloric acid (aq HCl) and sodium
hydroxide (NaOH) causes a mini explosion
in sense. Ha, just ask one of my friends who
decided to do that one day in lab because
he was bored.
Now, the whole debate on virtual
science class has many “skeptical university
professors,” and the College Board. The
College Board is “one of the most powerful
organizations in American educations…”
they are “questioning whether Internetbased laboratories are an acceptable
substitute for the hands-on culturing of gels
and peering through microscopes that have
been long essential ingredients of American
laboratory science,” (Dillion). Wouldn’t you
want to be able to do things hands-on so
you can learn by experience and mistakes?
It is like when are parents always say we
should learn from our mistakes.
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Effectiveness of Virtual Labs for Distance
Education Chemistry Students
Smart Science Education
One of the top virtual science software
industries is called Smart Science education.
According to Smart Science education, the
definition of a laboratory experience is that
“Laboratory
experiences
provide
opportunities to interact directly with the
material world (or with data drawn from
the material world), using the tools, data
collection techniques, models, and theories
of science,’ (Smart Science education).
Smart Science educators believe that
“simulations can have pedagogical value,
but this value does not include substituting
for true laboratory experience no matter
how well designed or well integrated the
simulation is….Many hands-on experiences
have been blended with online experiments
to form ‘hybrid’ labs that include date from
both types of experimentation,” (Smart
Science education).
Blending the two types of labs would allow
for many different results to occur. Some
may be good but some may be bad. In an
experiment done at a University, two
different studies are discussed. The
hypothesis the researchers in charge of
both studies came up with was that using a
virtual laboratory would have many
benefits, such as “students would feel more
relaxed and comfortable in the laboratory,
less lab time would be wasted looking for
items of apparatus, students would be
more likely to assemble and use apparatus
in the correct way leading to more
meaningful experimental results, and
students could devote more of their
attention to the chemistry concepts
involved in the experiments because they
would be already familiar with the
procedural aspects of the task,” (Dalgarno).
Study 1 was “to evaluate the
effectiveness of the Virtual Laboratory for
learning about the spatial structure of the
laboratory and the items of apparatus and
equipment contained within in it,”
(Dalgarno). There was a virtual lab group
and a real lab group. They we’re asked to
answer questions about how they felt about
the laboratory layout and how well they felt
they knew the apparatus’. The results of
study 1 concluded that “Learning by
exploring the real laboratory is likely to be
more effective than learning by exploring
the Virtual Laboratory but the difference is
fairly small,” (Dalgarno).
In study 2, it was “designed to assess
the usefulness of the Virtual Laboratory as a
preparatory tool for university chemistry
Virtual Laboratory versus a Hands-on lab point
of view
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students studying at a distance, in advance
of their residential laboratory sessions,”
(Dalgarno). The participates who attended
residential schools were asked questions
about where their school experience and
how they learned in their schools
(Dalgarno). The results of the second study
concluded that “only a minority of the
students chose to use the Virtual
Laboratory, those who did in general found
it useful, but we were not able to identify a
clear effect on the confidence and anxiety
of students,” (Dalgarno).
Overall, the first study suggested
that the Virtual Laboratory can be an
effective tool to help students develop their
familiarity with the laboratory environment
prior to their laboratory sessions. I think
that is what should be done.
Personal Interview). Dr. Burnett has a good
point. If we don’t learn from our mistakes
then it’s as if we’re going through life
through the motions and we don’t learn
anything. We’re like blobs just doing
nothing. If we do hands-on experiments, we
are able to slow down and actually look at
the detail in the types of experiments that
we do.
Late Nite Labs
Dr. Burnett also sent an email with a link to
a website called “Late Nite Labs.” Late Nite
Labs is a website allows you to do a free
demo of a virtual chemistry or biology lab.
Late Nite labs mission is to “make cirtual lab
simulation technology available for superior
and accessible science education and
training.
We
create
educational,
comprehensive, and cost-effective virtual
science labs for high school, college,
university, and distance learning facilities to
enhance instruction and learning of
science,” (Late Nite Labs). I took the liberty
of doing the chemistry lab demo (Figure 2)
since I’m a chemistry major.
Figure 1. Joseph Burnett an Iowa State
Univirstiy chemistry professor.
Joseph Burnett Interview
In an interview with Joseph Burnett (Figure
1), one of Iowa State University’s chemistry
professors, Burnett stated that virtual
science labs “don’t give important
experiences, like hands-on experience. You
don’t get the spillage and mistakes. You
lose the understanding of importance of
laboratory safety and statistics, like the
uncertainty in measurements,” (Burnett
Figure 2. Late Nite Lab screen shot of a chemistry
lab REACTOR Demo.
The chemistry virtual lab that I did was
called the REACTOR. The REACTOR series of
chemistry labs has over 100 different lab
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simulations that instructors can base their
labs off (Late Nite Labs). I found it
interesting but after messing around with it
for a little while, I decided that I don’t think
I could really do that for every single lab.
The set up was nice and it was easy to
navigate through the sample experiment.
I’m more of a visual learner and
when it comes to things that involve math,
there better be something visual to go
along with it otherwise there would be no
way that I would come up with the right
answer. However, when I think about a
virtual science class, things like, “Would it
really help me to learn that way or what?”
pop into my mind. I don’t think I would
mind using it but I definitely wouldn’t
remember anything from it even though it
was visual. Something’s that I do have to be
hands-on, especially since I’m a chemistry
major and because most jobs that you can
do with a major in a hard science require
you to do hands on research.
One thing that does bother me
about hands-on labs is the risk of being
exposed to hazardous chemicals. If we were
to have virtual labs that risk would be
eliminated but think, if we got rid of all the
hazards and the things that could harm us,
all we would have left is some sort of a
video game. I may not be a big video game
player but wouldn’t a major game player
who was told to do an online lab get bored?
Now they might get bored if they were
doing a hands-on lab but in the hands-on
lab, they would be moving around and
actually doing the experiment. They would
be experiencing the different aspects of the
lab. They would be handling chemicals or
equipment that would help them to achieve
a goal within a lab.
The Future
Looking into the future I could see using a
virtual laboratory of some sort to help with
different things in the lab world but right
now I don’t think its such a good idea to
have a virtual science class all alone to
itself. Dr. Burnett stated in the interview
with him that he could see “maybe in 20
years or so you can put on some gloves and
have some real virtual reality glasses or
goggle’s and then you might get the same
experience as a real lab but right now I
don’t think so,” (Burnett Personal
Interview).
Dr. Burnett also stated that using an
virtual lab is “not a good training process
for training lab technicians, but you could
use it as part of a lab techs training but
definitely not part of the actual work,”
(Burnett Personal Interview). If you think
about it, I wouldn’t want to be the boss of a
lab tech that’s only done online training.
They wouldn’t be able do the hands-on
things asked of them because they didn’t
have any real life experience. If I had an
employee that was trained by using handson experiments and maybe some online
things, I would most likely be able to ask
them to do more tasks because of their
hands-on experience.
If someone in the future could
design a system that could eliminate safety
issues and any other issues that someone
might run into in a lab, then you might be
able to create a beneficial virtual class but
that would take lots of creativity (Burnett
Personal Interview). I think if you mix all
this stuff together, someone could create
something that could really help science
classes in the future.
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In this day and age, I don’t think there
should be virtual science classes that are
separate from normal classes. They should find
a way to integrate the two together so students
can get a better understanding of how different
reactions work or how lab equipment is
operated. Having them together would be allow
students to get both views of how the
“systems” work. Virtual labs could be used as a
pre-lab techniques because than before the
hands-on lab, the student could get a preview
of what they are about to do in the real lab.
Professors could use it as a tool to introduce
new topics to students as well.