Linda Kocian's MSU Blog: simulations

I love using simulations in my biology classes. I find students have much more success understanding certain concepts when there is a visual attached, especially one that is interactive. Chapter 3 of the text does a good job of discussing why computer simulations enhance learning and gives helpful guidelines for their use. The learningscience.org website is a great resource for so many topics. I have used many of the websites listed on that site. The BBC Interactive Human Body would be useful as a review and the johnkyrk.com cell biology animation site looks good (I had never seen that one), but I like the Cells Alive site better for my students. Although ExploreLearning.com looks like it has interesting ones, I shy away from sites that are not free.

Here are some that I have incorporated into my curriculum in the past and found to be useful:

Food Webs: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/explorer/ecosystems/be_an_explorer/map/line_experiment14.swf
http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/frogs/chain_reaction/index.cfm
http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/kids_web.htm
http://www.vtaide.com/png/foodchains.htm

Virtual Pig Dissection:
http://www.whitman.edu/biology/vpd/main.html

Circulation:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/heart/heartmap.html
http://www.ehc.com/vbody.asp

Digestion:
http://kitses.com/animation/swfs/digestion.swf
http://exhibits.pacsci.org/nutrition/noflash_nutrition.html

Evolution:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/evolution/
http://www.becominghuman.org/

Cells:
http://www.cellsalive.com/index.htm