Category Archives: Simulations
Get Body Smart
This site has some interesting human anatomy and physiology tutorials and animations, though it’s impossible to save them.
You’ll need a decent internet connection to run them.
The Transport System
These links are for the Further Human Physiology unit.
Here’s the powerpoint:
Download here: transport-system.ppt
And here’s the Click4Biology link
Medmovie.com has a large collection of animations which are great for this unit. We can’t link to them directly, but it’s worth having a look around.
The Cardiac Cycle:
Hyper Heart animation and graphs from the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Biointeractive from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Control of the Heart Beat:
A few good links to try from Washburn Rural High School
And don’t forget the Medmovie resource…
Atherosclerosis and Coronary Heart Disease:
Medmovie has good animations for atherosclerosis, heart attacks and heart bypass surgery. There aren’t many that are better…
Production of Tissue Fluid and Lymph:
Hydrostatic and osmotic pressure (fluid exchange) from McGraw Hill
Capillary exchange from coolschool.ca (they have other good resources, too)
Bonus features:
For a good (tricky) prac, here’s a virtual EKG package from skillstat.com
And here’s a decent heart structure tutorial from Gateway Community College
Medmovie.com – brilliant medical animations
Medmovie is a commercial website, though they have many animations available in their media library samples and interactives, including heart beats, heart attacks, atherosclerosis and more (I can’t link directly to each one – you have to go to the main page first)
They look fantastic – some are .swf and others are .mov, though all the samples can be saved easily in Firefox.
Children’s Hospital Boston – Great Flash apps for students
Thanks to Rod Murphy for this one.
eSchool News featured CHB’s site as site of the week and it’s well deserved. There are some great animations here, including a nice neurons and synapses animation, some stem cell resources, cancer information and a chance to have a go at
making an EM image.
Go have a look!
Fizzix is Phun
I’m a bit worried about posting this so close to the DP exams*, but it is irresistable…
Ben Goldacre posted this video on the badscience blog – it’s a Physics toy for the computer, which can be downloaded here: phun.at.
The comments page turned up a load of other good toys to play with, so go on over to the original post and check them out.
There are plenty of videos of Phun in action on YouTube.
*potential 10 on the procrastinometer
Footprints Science – loads of simple, clear interactives
This site has a good collection of animations and interactives aimed at KS3/GCSE levels. It is divided into Bio, Chem and Phys and has a section on coursework. Well worth spending time having a look there, especially as most of them can be saved easily.
Special prize for anyone who can work out what the Taj Mahal is doing in the banner for a Science website.
Freezeray.com – clicky-clicky!
This is a great resource for KS3 teachers. Thanks to Joshua Jones for posting the link to the TES Boards.
There is finally a site that aims to produce resources for classes AND deliberately allows them to be saved and kept for use on the IWB. They even have a page to help you save Flash files – and templates to make your own Flash tasks on Flash MX 2004 +.You know what’s even better? The Flash animations are actually useful. Such as this one, which is a simple and clear graph plotter for middle school. They also have technology (mehanics) sims, investigation planners and a bank of hangman-style keyword activities. Rock on.
It is produced by Freezeray, in association with Great Barr School – a specialist Science college that looks like it might actually be into Science.
Stop reading – go look.
PS – for the quickest way to dowload and save, go the Firefox way.
Gene Almanac – a resource of good animations and simulations
From the Dolan Learning Centre, this collection of animations and simulations can be downloaded easily for PC and MAC.
Clicking the image on the left should bring you directly to an animation about the polymerase chain reaction.
Simulations and Help with ICT in IB Biology
David Mindorrf, author of the IB Biology Course Companion and online faculty member for the IBO, has produced a website to assist teachers and students in the use of ICT to cover Aim 7 of the new subject guide. Of particular relevance to this blog is the page on the use of simulations (including some links) – though it is all worth reading.
Imaging Technology Group’s Virtual Microscope – Amazing free software
This is an unbelievable free, open-source piece of software. It basically emulates a scanning electron microscope and allows you all kinds of fuctionality, including: wide range of magnifications of super-high quality images; mass spec analysis with false colouring of different elements present; control over colour, brightness and image position; a very nifty measurement/line tool that is just perfect for the the IB Cells statements on magnifications.
The download is 128MB for the package including three images ready to mount. When opened, you can download many more images (around 25-30MB each – huge and great quality).
It’s brilliant – stop reading this and go play with it.
Well, if you’re still reading…
Their excellent website also includes a series of animations on the basics of microscopy, videos on preparing mounts and even a section on careers in microscopy.
i-Biology 