HHMI BioInteractive vs StarGenetics

HHMI BioInteractive provides biology classroom materials and professional learning for educators and students. Its resources include films, interactive labs, simulations, animations, data-driven investigations and lessons, with educator tools for adapting, implementing and assessing them. The organization says its materials are made with scientists and educators, draw on peer-reviewed research and real-world data, and undergo scientific accuracy review. Free professional learning includes online and in-person workshops, courses, and partnerships with schools and districts. The site identifies high school and undergraduate life science educators as its main audience. Assessment Builder offers crowdsourced, vetted assessment items for high school and introductory undergraduate life science courses, and requires a verified BioInteractive educator account. Interactive Video Builder lets users assemble interactive videos from more than 200 BioInteractive videos, clips and animations. Its terms caution that creating these videos may be suboptimal on phones and tablets, although playback works well there. Online Community resources may be downloaded and displayed for educational use; commercial use requires express permission from HHMI and other copyright owners. Free resources and professional learning are listed at free.

StarGenetics is a free simulator for Mendelian genetics crosses, intended to teach genetics concepts and experimental design. Its stated audience ranges from high school biology to advanced undergraduate biology. Students can use visualizers for cows, fish, flies, peas, a smiley face and yeast. Instructor resources cover genetic crosses, Punnett squares, complementation, epistasis, gene linkage and mapping, and tetrad analysis. Instructors can customize exercises using Excel workbooks in XLS format. The Punnett Square tool summarizes expected genotypic distributions for monohybrid and dihybrid crosses. Fly mating results can be viewed individually, sorted by sex and phenotype, or summarized by phenotype; DNA markers for genetic mapping are available in the Fly and Fish visualizers. Experiments can be saved to a file and reopened later. Excel export is limited to Fly exercises. StarGenetics is accessible through the web and downloadable for Linux, Windows and macOS. MIT recommends Java Web Start and provides operating-system downloads for users with limited internet connectivity. Users can submit bug reports, feature requests, comments or questions through the in-app suggestions form.