When Do Simulations Deepen Understanding—and When Do They Get in the Way

Simulations can be useful in science classrooms, but only if we are honest about what they are—and what they are not.

A simulation is always a representation. No matter how well designed, it is a piece of software engineered to behave in finite, predetermined ways. It can model certain relationships clearly, but it cannot carry the full complexity, variability, and sensory richness of real phenomena. When simulations are treated as equivalents to hands-on investigation, they often flatten learning rather than deepen it.

This article clarifies how KnowAtom teachers use simulations intentionally and sparingly: as idea spaces that support prediction, explanation, and discussion, without ever replacing real materials, real uncertainty, or real sensemaking.

Why simulations can never fully replace real phenomena

Simulations are engineered systems. That engineering brings clarity but it also imposes limits.

Real tools, materials, and phenomena possess qualities that simulations fundamentally cannot replicate:

• Sound and silence
• Smell and absence of smell
• Weight, density, and center of gravity
• Texture, friction, and resistance
• Fine color gradients and subtle refraction
• Reflectivity, conductivity, and heat transfer
• The ability to spill, break, leak, or fail unexpectedly

These characteristics are not “extra.” They are often where understanding and curiosity begins along with the sense of ownership of something real that can’t simply be re-booted.

In Grade 3 Energy in Motion, students notice that a heavier ball rolls differently than a lighter one, even when released from the same height. That difference is felt before it is explained. No simulation can reproduce the embodied realization of mass interacting with gravity and friction.

In Grade 4 Plant & Animal Structures, students observe how light refracts through water droplets on leaves. The variation in angle, brightness, and color is subtle and uneven. A simulation may show refraction, but it cannot reproduce the fine-grained noticing that leads students to ask better questions.

Simulations are necessarily cleaner than reality. Learning often depends on the mess.

What accidental learning looks like—and why simulations prevent it

Some of the most powerful learning moments in science are unplanned.

• A student spills water while testing erosion in Grade 4 Shaping Earth’s Surface and realizes that flow rate matters more than volume.
  
  
• A team misconnects a circuit in Grade 5 Matter and Electricity and discovers that precision in contact points changes outcomes.
  
  
• A group in Grade 2 Engineering Homes builds a structure that collapses unevenly, revealing how center of gravity affects stability.

These moments matter because they are not scripted. They emerge from interaction with real systems that allow mistakes, partial success, and unexpected outcomes.

Simulations, by design, prevent this level of accidental learning. Software must constrain possibilities to function. Variables are limited. Errors are anticipated. Outcomes are bounded.

That boundedness makes simulations safer and clearer—but also less authentic.

As a result, simulations tend to reduce the role of precision. In the real world, small changes matter. In simulations, only the changes the designer allows can matter.

Why many simulations undermine learning rather than support it

When simulations are introduced without acknowledging these limits, three predictable problems emerge.

1. Students manipulate variables without reasoning. Sliders move, graphs change, and results appear, but students are not required to account for mechanisms beyond what the interface displays.
2. Outcomes replace explanations. Because simulations often show “correct” behavior, students accept what they see rather than construct explanations grounded in evidence.
3. Exploration becomes entertainment rather than sensemaking. Without intellectual purpose, simulations feel engaging while bypassing the cognitive work that leads to understanding.

Research consistently shows that simulations without structured prediction, explanation, and reflection rarely lead to conceptual change (de Jong & van Joolingen, 1998; Chi, 2009).

In KnowAtom Grade 4 Forces and Motion, students work with physical levers, sliding the fulcrum closer to and farther from the load. As they do, they feel the change immediately. The force required shifts. The distance their hands travel changes. The lever resists differently.

Students notice that moving the fulcrum closer to the load makes lifting easier, but requires moving the effort through a greater distance. That relationship is not announced. It is experienced, tested, argued about, and refined through repeated attempts.

A simulation of levers can show how changing the fulcrum affects mechanical advantage, but it externalizes the reasoning. The software calculates the outcome and displays it cleanly. The student observes what the model reveals.

In contrast, the physical lever requires the student to generate the relationship by doing work, feeling resistance, and reconciling tradeoffs between effort and distance. “Feeling resistance” is not the same as seeing resistance represented. One produces insight through action; the other presents insight as information.

This difference matters because conceptual understanding in science often grows out of effortful interaction with constraints, not from observing idealized results. When simulations replace those interactions, students may recognize patterns without ever owning the reasoning behind them.

Why hands-on phenomena must always come first

In KnowAtom lessons, hands-on investigation is not a motivational hook. It is the epistemic core of learning.

Physical materials anchor understanding in reality. When students feel resistance, smell materials heating, hear vibrations, or struggle with balance, they are encountering constraints that mirror the real world.

Uncertainty creates productive struggle. In Grade 6 Climate and Human Activity, water evaporates unevenly, measurements vary, and data requires interpretation. That uncertainty forces students to reason, not just observe.

Messiness reveals mechanisms. In Grade 1 Weather in Our World, students notice that darker materials warm faster—but not uniformly. That inconsistency drives discussion about absorption and energy transfer.

Simulations should never replace this phase. They can only follow it.

The limited but powerful role simulations can play

When used intentionally, simulations can extend thinking in ways physical materials cannot.

They can make invisible mechanisms discussable. In Grade 6 Atoms and Molecules, a particle motion simulation helps students talk about molecular behavior they cannot see, after they have already experienced heating and cooling firsthand.

They can slow thinking through prediction and explanation. Teachers pause the simulation and ask students to commit to ideas before observing outcomes.

They can surface misconceptions for collective analysis. In Grade 8 From Molecules to Organisms, simulations of protein synthesis often reveal misunderstandings that become productive discussion points.

In each case, the simulation clarifies ideas that emerged from real phenomena. It does not introduce them.

Using simulations as shared idea spaces, not activities to complete

In strong KnowAtom classrooms, simulations are framed explicitly as models with limits.

Teachers name what the simulation shows well—and what it cannot show. Students are asked to compare the simulation to their hands-on experiences.

• Before interacting, students predict.
  
  
• During interaction, students explain changes.
  
  
• Afterward, students argue about how well the model matches reality.

Disagreement becomes a resource for refining understanding, not a distraction from “finishing” the activity.

This aligns with research on conceptual change, which emphasizes explanation, comparison, and revision over exposure (Kapur, 2016; Ritchhart, 2015).

Designing purposeful use without increasing screen time

Purposeful use means brief, focused, and clearly bounded.

• Simulations are used in short windows.
  
  
• They emphasize noticing and questioning, not mastery of controls.
  
  
• Ideas always return to physical investigation and class discourse.

In Grade 3 Life on Earth, a short simulation of population change may follow fossil analysis, helping students test ideas before revisiting physical evidence.

Technology serves the thinking, not the schedule.

What changes when simulations are positioned honestly

When teachers are explicit that simulations are representations—not replacements—several shifts occur:

Students trust their firsthand observations more deeply.
Technology clarifies rather than overrides sensemaking.
Curiosity is sustained through questions, not clicks.

This is why KnowAtom remains intentionally hands-on and screens-off by default. Simulations are invited in only when they strengthen shared understanding and preserve the authenticity of learning.

References

• Chi, M. T. H. (2009). Active-constructive-interactive: A conceptual framework for differentiating learning activities. Topics in Cognitive Science.

• de Jong, T., & van Joolingen, W. R. (1998). Scientific discovery learning with computer simulations. Review of Educational Research.

• Kapur, M. (2016). Examining productive failure, productive success, unproductive failure, and unproductive success in learning. Educational Psychologist.

• Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating Cultures of Thinking. Jossey-Bass.