The Design of Thermochemistry Practical Work Using Virtual Laboratory Galuh Yuliani, Heli Siti Halimatul, Siti Aisyah, Tuszie Widhiyanti, Siti Supriyanti
Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced teachers to convert their traditional teaching media into online learning. This may not create significant obstacles for theory delivery, but this is certainly difficult for practical works in chemistry. Unlike other subjects, chemistry required students to understand how the knowledge is gathered and the aspects of data acquisition in chemistry. Students are required to understand the Nature of Science and this is normally achieved by providing practical works enabling students to experience first hand the science process skills in chemistry. Although there are probably no online media that matched students actual activity in the laboratory, virtual laboratory may provide some benefits. These include students ability to understand laboratory apparatus, observe and understand science phenomena, collecting data, changing variables and analyzing experiment results. This study shows how teachers can design a laboratory activity based on the available virtual laboratory on thermochemistry topic. The integration of the topic to national curriculum, laboratory work design, students worksheet development are described in detail. This may serve as an alternative for thermochemistry learning in high school.
