Collaborative Research: Interdisciplinary Virtual Labs for Undergraduate Education in the NSDL MatDL

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Interdisciplinary (99)Virtual lab (VL) activities are designed to help students connect microscopic structure and principles to macroscopic outcomes, a difficult connection for students to learn and ideally suited to VL experience. VLs may provide a workable alternative to physical labs, allowing students to achieve many ABET laboratory learning objectives while circumventing difficulties associated with growing enrollments and physical space limitations. The technical focus of the VL project is molecular interactions, how they are affected by temperature, and how these can be managed to influence self-assembly and phase separation, which are seen in all three chosen domains: materials science, chemistry and biology. The same principal instructional technique across the three domains is student interaction with molecular level simulations. Two different context types relevant to each domain are provided: modern research and everyday science. A domain-specific introductory segment provides students with a relevant "big-picture" view. At the end, students apply within a particular domain, knowledge gained from interactions with the simulation. Contextualizing the learning experience makes it more compelling for students, increasing the likelihood that concepts are retained over time and that learning is transferred to other situations. The NSDL MatDL Pathway project contributes to this project with the result that broader impact of NSF funded initiatives is attained by increasing the number, quality, accessibility, and usage of learning resources, particularly those based on recent research, thereby integrating research and education.