REAL AND VIRTUAL LABORATORIES TOGETHER IN GENERAL CHEMISTRY EDUCATION: STARTING POINTS FOR RESEARCH PROJECT

The combination of real and virtual environments in general science (chemistry) education is a current challenge for school curriculum in the period of information society. The article describes theoretical background, starting points and design of a research project in this area. Possibilities of real and virtual school chemical experiment and their combination will be analyzed. These approaches are named remote and virtual laboratories. They are the important part of a virtual learning environment (VLE) as the up-to-date trend in natural science instruction supported by ICT. They bring a new dimension not only to laboratories, but also to everyday life of students, teachers and every other person interested in science education. New possibilities to measure, to control anything from any computer, to receive current data from the opposite part of the world – these are and will bring immense motivation. The project design, including pilot results, is presented on the example of laboratory work “pH measuring”. Two as much as identical scenarios were prepared using either real or virtual pH-meter, managed by worksheets containing tasks of three levels: pH measuring of different solutions, answers to problem-based questions and open-task to create set of next pH measuring. The project is ready for piloting in the K-LaMPa Centre, which is situated in laboratories of the Chemistry Department, Faculty of Education, University of Hradec Kralove, and enables running experimental activities of primary and secondary school pupils and students. The received results will be presented and discussed on conferences and relating actions. Now the authors offer the cooperation concerned to widening of the research.