Software Simulation Enhances Science Experiments.
Frances M. Coleman · The journal · 1997
The physical testing at the heart of science experiments conducted by students is not a terribly efficient use of time, or a school district's money. Students with varying degrees of mechanical aptitude must contend with a variety of instruments, negotiate the sharing of units with classmates, and block off time to run their tests. The time and cost required for students to examine more than just a few factors are often prohibitive. It is difficult to justify the expense of exploring new ideas and hunches, even though that is where real breakthroughs in learning take place. For that matter, teachers must also spend a significant amount of time coordinating the use of instruments among students and managing a sizable inventory of devices. Although there is no replacement for students' hands-on experience with instrumentation and the physical processes, we can lend much greater efficiency to experimentation by letting students use software simulation models in the place of much of physical testing. A simulation runs in minutes, instead of the several days or weeks required by physical methods. Along with giving students greater efficiency, it enables them to investigate many more variables. Simulation not only provides a timesaving but also an important opportunity to make learning experiences come alive for students. It lets them interact with the system under study and receive immediate responses. Simulation lets them explore, come up with hunches and test them, then make some well-considered conclusions. This dynamic approach enables students to understand the workings of a system much better. Another advantage of exposing students to software simulation is that they will get a taste of the same approach used by many engineers and research scientists in the world of product design and development. These professionals have replaced a significant amount of their physical testing with software simulation. Better, Graphical Software Brings It to High School Extensive experience with simulation concepts is not required for a student to benefit from the software models, as most of today's simulation packages are visual and menu-driven. Typical programs graphically depict the flow of components visually on the screen as students develop the diagram. During simulation, onscreen graphs immediately show the response of the components. In the past few years, simulation software has joined the widespread evolution led by Microsoft and Apple toward a graphic-oriented interface. I was introduced to one simulation package in the summer of 1995, while working at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson under a grant from the American Physiology Society's Frontiers in Science program for high school teachers. Finding the software easy to use, I thought of my students and the opportunity they could have to embark on explorations through simulation. (The software was certainly more visual than the simulation program I used years ago during my Ph.D. dissertation research. The extent of that program's graphic interface was a dark screen and a stack of pin-feed paper.) Students in all scientific disciplines can apply simulation to their experiments. Practically anything that can be measured -- pressure, flow rates, electrical fields, diameters -- can be simulated. Physics students can simulate electronic or mechanical systems. Geology students can simulate the effect of rainfall on water tables and erosion. Chemistry students can simulate the effect of temperature on pH levels or chemical reaction rates. Biology students can simulate the response of living organisms to outside stimuli. While most students will manually enter data, advanced students can obtain more accurate real-time input during an experiment by linking an instrument, such as a voltmeter, to the computer through a data acquisition card (DAQ, in the vernacular). Some of my biology students have set up and run models of human body systems. …