Lab science courses provide students with the opportunity to experiment and get hands-on with the concepts they’re studying, helping to make the abstract more concrete. While in-person lab experiences involve fully stocked laboratories, online courses can pose a unique challenge when materials and equipment cannot be easily distributed or may not be cost-effective for students. In EAES101: Planet Earth, Professor Galster worked with ITDS instructional designers to curate online simulations, many created by the Concord Consortium (a nonprofit research and development organization), that could provide students in an asynchronous course a similarly engaging opportunity to experiment with earth science processes like plate tectonics, oceanic and atmospheric conditions, and energy generation, complementing similarly rigorous in-person lab activities.
Click on the video above for a preview of how students see/interact with this simulation.