This project (funded by Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation) aims to go a step further than the Acid ocean virtual lab in inducing students into the concrete manners in which scientists work and research is carried out. This project is a collaboration between LETStudio, LinCS, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences at the University of Gothenburg and the Mikael Elias Teoretiska gymnasiet in Gothenburg and Malmö.
In this project, students will take the role of a Ph.D-student starting in a new lab working on marine environmental issues. Student will first learn about the new research field, apply for funding to run his/her own experiment and design the experimental protocol to test his/her hypothesis with limitation such as money, time, ethic. Student will then receive the data from the experiment, analyze them, present his/her conclusions to the classroom and finally create a scientific presentation to be presented at an international conference. VirtualLab will provide an engaging context for learning about experimentation and will encourage collaboration and joint problem‐solving.
The project will be based on real and up‐to‐date marine scientific data on scientific questions relevant for the Swedish upper‐secondary school curriculum. Finally this project will encourage an attitude where science is not seen as the absolute truth; rather, it is a systematic way of studying the world and reaching well‐founded, but still provisional, insights. Scientific methods are quite complex, and when mastering the basics of the experimental design students will be well equipped for further learning in a range of disciplines. It is our conviction that this interest in virtual labs may offer possibilities for collaboration with many departments at the university and with many types of schools.
