Virtual science labs: web sites featuring simulated chemistry labs or virtual frog dissections are becoming popular teaching tools. But are they a substitute for hands-on experience?

• Author: Dillon, Sam
• Position: EDUCATION

Virtual chemistry labs and other online simulations, like the ones that let students dissect virtual frogs or pigs, have become widely used science teaching tools. They allow students to perform experiments that would be too costly or dangerous to do at their local high schools. Now, a dispute has flared over how far the Internet can go in displacing brick-and-mortar labs.

A.P. CREDIT?

The College Board, which oversees Advanced Placement courses, has set up panels of science professors and online educators to review online labs offered by Web-based schools for A.P. courses. The panels will help the Board determine whether high schools can apply the A.P. designation to online science courses on the transcripts of students applying to college starting this fall.

Twenty-five states operate Internet-based schools like the Florida Virtual School, the nation's largest, with 40,000 students. The North American Council for Online Learning estimates that 60,000 public-school students are enrolled in online science courses.

"Professors are saying that simulations can be really good, that they use them to supplement their own lab work, but that they'd be concerned...