ChemCollective Virtual Lab vs Interactive Chemistry

ChemCollective Virtual Lab is an online chemistry simulation that connects calculations with laboratory-style experiments. Students and educators can use its web activities without licensing requirements, including experiments with hundreds of standard aqueous reagents across acid-base chemistry, thermochemistry, solubility, and redox topics. Teaching resources include prepared lab problems, tutorials, courses, real-world scenarios, visualizations, simulations, and concept tests. Autograded activities randomize unknowns and check answers, with hints and feedback. Teachers can make free classroom pages that collect activity links, instructions, and handouts, and track attempts on autograded problems. Instructors may modify activities or request custom ones. Downloadable versions for Windows and Mac are available, though Java may be needed. The project aims to help high school and college students approach chemistry like practicing scientists. Its current scope is aqueous reactions. The Virtual Lab is free for educators and students; the site and its contents are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 NonCommercial-NoDerivs.

Interactive Chemistry provides free science games and simulations for teaching topics from middle school through university level. Its activities cover ionic and covalent bonding, cellular respiration, reactions, and molecular interactions. Chemistry teacher Steven Sogo created the games with support from high school students at Laguna Beach High School. The Cell Model 2025 game is playable on iPads, Android tablets, and most phones. The Double Replacement Reaction Simulator works on laptops, Chromebooks, and mobile devices. In the Matchmaker double replacement game, students get immediate feedback when they form correct products and can practice balancing equations; its page also links to suggested lessons and an instructional video. The site lists Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows. Users can report bugs or suggest features through linked forms, and an email contact is provided. The maker describes its experiments and prototypes as unfinished and potentially buggy. Prototype code is available on GitHub for users to finish themselves. The listed plan is Free at free.