STEM Models and Simulations

STEM Models & Simulations

Enabling inquiry and experimentation with scientifically accurate virtual labs

View all STEM Models & Simulations projects


Our computational models, based on scientific first principles, make the world’s invisible phenomena visible and explorable. Students can peer into the details of chemical reactions, manipulate the unseeable world of genes and DNA, compress centuries into seconds to unlock evolution’s gradual mysteries, or watch Earth’s plates create massive landforms. From our groundbreaking Molecular Workbench to our popular Geniverse suite of dragon genetics software, we’ve been creating scientifically accurate virtual labs from our start.

For example,

  • Our Building Models project is developing a systems modeling tool for students to construct dynamic models and validate their models by comparing outputs from their own models and data from one or more other sources. Read Supporting secondary students in building external models to explain phenomena.
  • We’re adding virtual investigations to our popular Geniverse dragon genetics software so students can explore the physical traits (like wings!) that result from allele combinations, then zoom into cells and manipulate the proteins that ultimately give rise to those traits. Read about GeniConnect.
  • GEODE is creating a way to visualize the Earth’s movements using an interactive, dynamic computer model of tectonic plates. Read Modeling plate tectonics for learning.