science

A Nice Guide to the Solar System to Put On Your Students’ iPads

January 20, 2013 by admin

Interactive Minds: Solar System is an iPad app designed to help students learn about the size of the solar system and to help learn a little history of space exploration.

There is a free version and a paid version of Interactive Minds: Solar System. The free version contain seventeen pages of basic information about the solar system. One of the highlights of the free version is an interactive comparison of the size of planets and moons in our solar system. Students can select the planets and moons that they want to compare. Students can also compare the size of the planets and the moons to the sun. Another nice feature of the app is the embedded video clips of both simulations and real footage from space.

The paid version of Interactive Minds: Solar System contains forty pages of information. Included in those pages are additional simulations and more in-depth information about the topics of gravity, dwarf planets, and planetary seasons. Both apps are suitable for elementary school. They’re probably too basic for students older than about eleven or so. I recommend trying the free version of the app before buying the full version.

Six Weeks of iPadApps4School.com

January 19, 2013 by admin

Tomorrow marks six weeks since I officially launched this blog. I’ve been amazed by the response to it. In just six weeks 3,500 people have subscribed to either the RSS or email feed. To bring some organization to what I’ve reviewed so far I sat down and created a slideshow of most of the apps that I’ve reviewed in the last six weeks. The slideshow is organized in the following order: math apps, science apps, social studies apps, language arts apps, video apps, and productivity apps.

Image Credit: Flickr User Lin T. Image source.

VCell – A Free iPad App for Learning About Cells

January 16, 2013 by admin

VCell is a free iPad published by a team of scientists and developers at North Dakota State University. The purpose of the app is to provide a place where students can learn about cellular respiration, protein expression, and RNA expression. Within each heading there are subtopics for students to choose. For example, if a student selects RNA Expression he or she then has to select from the menu of mRNA splicing, mRNA processing, transcription, and regulation of transcription. Once a selection is made students can watch a video, browse a slideshow, and read about the topic. To test their understanding of the topics students can take a short quiz at the end of each topic.

VCell probably isn’t going to win any awards for its aesthetics. Aside from that it’s a good free iPad app that high school students can use as reference and review app.

Explore a Virtual Human Heart on Your iPad

January 12, 2013 by admin

Virtual Heart is a free iPad app that allows users to take a closer look at how the human heart functions. The free app lets users speed up and slow down the virtual heart rate. Users have four views of the heart in the app. The views are of the electrical system, the valves, blood flow, and the interior of the heart. Each view can be experienced with or without labels. The first time each view is tapped, a short introduction to that view is displayed.

As a free iPad app, the Virtual Heart could be a nice supplement to a lesson on the human heart. You might use the app to illustrate a topic during a lecture or direct students to the app as a supplementary resource to use when they’re studying.

iCell for iPad Gives Students 3D Views of Cells

January 8, 2013 by admin

iCell is a free iPad app developed by the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology. The app provides students with 3D models of plant, animal, and bacteria cells. Each cell model can be viewed in detail by zooming in and rotating the model on your iPad. Students can learn about the parts of the cells by tapping on them to reveal their labels and a brief description of that part’s function. There are a basic, intermediate, and advanced description options. The basic option is good for middle school students while the intermediate and advanced options are better for high school students.