12051

12051

General Session - Conference Presentation Only (20 minutes, no formal paper)

Bickley Donald, Prince William Sound Community College, Valdez, Alaska, USA, dbickley@pwscc.edu Julie Fronzuto, Prince William Sound Community College, Valdez, Alaska, USA, jafronzuto@pwscc.edu
 * Creative Learning in a Virtual Wet Lab**

Our demonstration will explore creative uses of conducting a virtual wet lab within a virtual world. By controlling time and manipulating the process of lab assembly, we can take advantage of the efficiency of an image that summarizes data in a way that enables our students to become participants within that image as they interact with the data in 3D. To illustrate this, we will highlight our Second Life Mendelian genetics lab, which enables the student to instantly cross a variety of fruit flies to explore a monohybrid cross, dihybrid cross, incomplete dominance, and sex-linked traits. We will then show how that information can be applied in a role playing experience that covers two hundred years of predator influenced natural selection. Student feedback will highlight what students learned and how they learned during these virtual labs. We will also explore how and why an instructor might want to change the mechanics of a real life lab to enable more efficient learning using a virtual counterpart.

All Audiences biology chemistry virtual worlds Second Life OpenSim distance education immersive creative learning live lab