Experiential Learning of Physio-Chemical and Bacteriological Properties of Water using Virtual Labs

Abstract

Virtual Labs, an initiative by the Government of India under the National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT), has revolutionized the teaching and learning process for laboratory courses in the science and engineering disciplines. The web-based laboratories provided by the Virtual Labs project enable personalized learning while being cost effective and highly scalable. This approach helps to quickly learn the fundamental concepts of science and engineering through virtual experimentation, fosters curiosity and innovation among students, and prevents laboratory hazards. In this paper, we describe the design and development of two web-based virtual laboratories that simulate the fundamental concepts of Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering. The proposed virtual labs provide a detailed explanation of the experiments in the respective engineering domains, and reagents and apparatuses involved while performing the experiments. The outcomes of this work are evaluated by analyzing the feedback collected from the users of these virtual labs, which reveals that the labs are an useful means to provide easy, cost effective and scalable solutions for online experiential learning.