Online High School Labs Bring Science Home

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And you thought your online high school biology class would be all reading, no play. Today's online high school science programs are every bit as hands-on as their classroom counterparts. You'll meet virtual frogs, discover virtual anemone hidden in virtual tidepools, and if you're not careful, you might even cause a virtual explosion with virtual hydrochloric acid.

Educational Games
It all started with a chemistry professor who wanted to supplement his lectures with an interactive lab. He photographed thousands of test tubes holding different chemicals, and engaged a video game designer to simulate experiments with them. Students could choose which solutions to combine, in which amounts, and watch the reactions "live."

Online High School Experiments
Today, that online chemistry lab has expanded to cover the entire high school curriculum. 150,000 students nationwide rely on this lab, many of them accessing it from a traditional high school classroom.

Online labs are a lifeline for many under-funded urban and rural high schools, which otherwise could not offer advanced science education at all. The North American Council for Online Learning estimates that 60,000 public high school students are enrolled in an online science course.

Lab Results
The quality of online high school labs is evidenced in student performance; online students consistently earn higher scores on the College Board's Advanced Placement (A.P.) exams than their classroom peers. In 2005, for example, 61% of students nationwide earned a qualifying score. The figures for two of the country's largest online high schools were significantly higher: 80% and 71%, respectively.

Successes like these explain the popularity of online high school education. The Chronicle of Higher Education lists 113 accredited online secondary schools nationwide, 32 of which offer A.P. science courses.

Virtual science labs have scored a victory for online schools, demonstrating that computer simulations can offer the same quality education as hands-on classroom training. Just without the fire hazards and formaldehyde.

Source
The New York Times, "No Test Tubes? The Debate on Virtual Science Classes"