FlashyScience is a website which allows GCSE and A-Level science students to perform virtual experiments which complement the syllabuses. The website is usually a paid-for resource but it will now be free for pre-university schools and colleges to access until August 2021 so students can continue their learning and practical education during the coronavirus pandemic, whether they are in school or not.
The virtual experiments include Hooke's Law, Ohm's Law, Specific Heat Capacity and Radioactivity, amongst others, and these can be repeated in the classroom or at home as many times as the students like.
In May, at a time when we were adapting to a new way of working, we reported that FlashyScience was being made available to all UK schools until August for free (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/free-science-resources-for-schools-homeschooling-physics-lessons-experiments-online-gcse-a-level-1.888184).
As a result, the site has now attracted more than 90 UK schools and institutions with over 2000 individual users. These are students studying science subjects at schools, colleges and even universities.
Now that we are in the new academic year, the developers of FlashyScience, Professor Dan Allwood and Dr Julian Dean from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, have announced that FlashyScience will now be available to pre-university schools and colleges around the world for free until August 2021.
Within the University of Sheffield, we have been using the platform with new students studying on Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering and General Engineering courses to supplement hands-on laboratory classes as they start their degree courses with us.
However, in recent months the FlashyScience team have been working hard to extend the capabilities of the site, by making the site compatible with tablet devices, and introducing new experiments.
They also employed the services of an intern to develop a series of curriculum-based questions and answers to accompany each experiment to help the users test their understanding.
On top of this, further experiments are in preparation and are expected to be released in the next few weeks.
Already, an alumna from the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, Hermanchi Galiaya, is working on promoting Flashy Science in her home country of Kenya by delivering demonstrations to science teachers, as part of her role as a community worker.
Professor Allwood comments, “It is fantastic to see so many students making use of the resource that I put together with Julian, and we hope that more will take us up on the offer of a free subscription for the coming academic year.
“We recognise that the school setting may change at very short notice, but by having FlashyScience available, teachers will still be able to provide their students with the opportunity to learn online, using experiments that they can do and redo to generate genuine experimental results.”
Any schools or teachers who would like to access all of the resources on the website should email info@flashyscience.com or visit https://flashyscience.com to contact the team to request a free license.