David R. Anderson, Ph.D.

Virtual General Chemistry Laboratories

These virtual laboratories were created primarily for use in introductory general chemistry courses (in our case for nursing students), although they would also be appropriate for mainstream general chemistry courses or advanced high school chemistry courses.

Our main goal is to provide students with an opportunity to carry out laboratory experiments that might not otherwise be possible--because of hazards, expense, time, or difficulty--in a traditional laboratory setting. Thus these experiments are intended to enhance the students' laboratory experience, rather than as a replacement for their conventional hands-on activities. So far we have created five experiments involving radioactivity (available through the link below), and we are currently developing several experiments involving gas laws.

We have incorporated an inquiry-based approach to learning, where students are encouraged to discover principles, properties, and relationships in realistic simulations. The experiments utilize photographiic images of real laboratory equipment, and students are allowed to freely manipulate the objects in the "laboratory."

Go to the Virtual General Chemistry Laboratories