Community reviews for PhET Interactive Simulations

When lessons or experiments are too costly, time-consuming, or prone to error, virtual options such as PhET simulations can be extremely valuable. PhET simulations provide an opportunity for virtual learning, which is particularly useful during emergencies such as lockdowns or fully remote learning situations. In such instances, resources like PhET are invaluable in mitigating the risk of learning loss.

Overall, it was an easy tool to use for my students needs. It was easy to set-up and students had no trouble using it. The lessons were also easy enough but also helped encourage learning that I would use this again in the future.

I encourage teachers to use it. However, the quality of your course is more important than relying on simulations. Observation and debriefing are key. There's a broad variety of simulations to pick from which make testing different aspects of testing things fun.

I would like to emphasize the benefits of manipulating materials, for both science and math, with your hands! But, if certain lessons/experiments are too costly, time inefficient, or tend to be prone to error, the virtual options PhET offers are extremely valuable. Using PhET also opens up opportunities for fully virtual learning in the event of emergencies (lockdowns, fully remote learning would be required). Nowadays, resources like PhET are invaluable for helping avoid learning loss in the event of being forced to move to fully remote instruction.

For this math program, I really liked how I could adjust the angle of the lines which would ultimately lead to to changes in the angle degrees. This would be very useful for students taking trigonometry because it offers them many different practice problems which are they key for solving math problems. This is something I would have used throughout high school and college.

This site is a great source of basic math and science simulations. There's a wide variety of simulations to pick from which make testing different aspects of testing things fun. For example, the buoyancy simulation has a lot of fun options to find the relationship between volume, mass, density, and an object's ability to float. The ability to change all these variables make the simulations both fun and a great learning tool.

I think this tool is very helpful and a great resource to teach a science lab online and letting students play around with the different features.

Overall, I would say that these interactive simulation are great teaching tools. I really like that they allow students to explore how slight changes in the parameters of the simulation can have a large impact on the outcome. I think this tool also stimulates the creativity and critical thinking of the students by allowing them to explore various cases that I may not cover. Science and mathematics are often simplified in the problems teachers give so allowing students to utilize a simulation to test various edge cases will show them how more complex phenomena can appear. For the circuit simulations, students can use these to see what will and will not work within a circuit. This is also a great way for students to work on circuit problems without electrical equipment. The one thing that I do not particularly like about the simulations is that they do not have full coverage within a subject. Some of the simulations also tend to be too simplified to be helpful.

I think this can further help students understand scientific content by giving them a visual and hands-on approach to how some concepts work. Though this product is beneficial in adding to the class topic, it can only work with the teacher is leading the class and thoroughly explaining the steps needed to correctly do the simulation. If clear directions are not given students can lose their way and become confused. This product could be a hit or miss depending on how well the teacher plans the activity out.

I encourage people to use it, but do not use just this. Obviously, your lesson quality is more important than relying on the simulation. Observation and debrief are the keys.