To be sure, I also agree with the importance of having full inquiry experiences. The role of guided inquiry, however, is very important for learning both science content and process skills. The only time I could do full inquiry on a regular basis was when I taught a science research class in the Bronx.

I think the best virtual experiences are those that don’t replicate classroom labs but take students to places they couldn’t ordinarily go and do things they ordinarily couldn’t do. For example, Adaptive Curriculum’s “Mutualism” Activity Object allows students to do a virtual experiment with a crocodile and plover bird and “Nuclear Energy: Fission” has students go into a nuclear submarine to manipulate control rods of a reactor.

Adaptive Curriculum doesn’t look to take over the curriculum, it is a compliment–with one experience per week that can be done in school, at home, or at a public library. It it was being pushed as an everyday approach, I would also feel the threat to realia.

I don’t believe we should condemn virtual experiences; they can add value to science education. But I do think it is a good question that you raise: how do we best use virtual experiences to promote inquiry?

Having said that; labs are one of the parts of teaching science that I really love! This is where students actually get to do science! What is going to stick with a student longer? A virtual lab on circuits or a real lab where they set up their own? A virtual dissection or a real one? Which is more magical; a virtual acid base lab or a real one?

I usually remind my students before a lab, hey, this can be a little challenging–so expect that and persevere because it is going to be really fascinating and exciting when things work. When they know that it is hard to locate the collar cells on a sponge cell under the microscope they feel a real sense of accomplishment when they do finally do find them.

And what about those kids who cruise along in the rest of science class doing so-so, but who come alive with the labs? The kids with real practical knowledge, who love hands on, who really ‘get’ the labs. Hard to imagine them getting fired up about a simulation.

Virtual labs have a place, a rather limited place, but they definitely should NOT supplant real labs.

Thanks for your thought provoking post!

But there is this notion that programs like the Adaptive Curriculum are a way to ensure that all students learn science. I too took a look at the website, as you did, and find it to be simply another way to “cover” the ground, rather than “uncovering the ground” as you believe by involving your students in real science inquiry. I think your approach is more powerful, and fits with these words that were written by Bob Samples, many years ago:

Science is fun. It always has been. In the presence of the joy of creating and discovering, there is always the sense of the antic. Jerome Bruner said it best when he described the act of creativity. He said, “There is something antic about creating, although the enterprise be serious.”

Technology should be used in the science classroom, but simply shifting to an “adaptive type-of curriculum” lessens the chances for learning that involves the messy, creative side of science.