Investigative Stimuli for Intuitive Growth using High Technology

Computer simulations that teach sophisticated physical concepts to students in physics and chemistry classes, including award-winning software: MouseLab and WaveMaker.

MouseLab is an innovative, highly graphical, interactive program that enables users to gain an intuitive feeling for the relationships among several fundamental physical concepts: displacement, velocity, and acceleration. The program uses a computer mouse to graphically input data or move virtual objects onscreen, freeing the user from the additional hardware required by traditional microcomputer-based physics labs. To find out more about MouseLab, click here.

MouseLab was awarded First Prize in the 5th Annual Educational Software Contest sponsored by Computers in Physics, a publication of the American Institute of Physics.

WaveMaker is an interactive computer simulation of a discreetly weighted elastic string. It illustrates properties of harmonic motion of individual particles and the collective behavior that gives rise to waves. Students can explore a variety of phenomena with quantum analogs, including superposition, standing and running waves, normal modes, the influence of boundary conditions, and wave tunneling. To find out more about Wavemaker, click here.

WaveMaker was awarded First Prize in the 2nd Annual Educational Software Contest sponsored by Computers in Physics, a publication of the American Institute of Physics.

Grade levels: 7-12

For more information, please contact: Freeman Deutsch, fdeutsch@cfa (add .harvard.edu), (617) 496-4788