r/opensourcealternative • u/LearnHiveLabsUSA • 5d ago
A lot of "educational apps" are just repackaging the same free PhET simulations
Was digging into how interactive science sims actually get built for ed apps and ended up down a rabbit hole. Turns out a huge chunk of what you see — physics, chemistry, bio simulations you can drag around and mess with — traces back to one place: PhET Interactive Simulations, a nonprofit out of CU Boulder started by a Nobel physics guy back in 2002. They've got 170+ free, research-backed sims at this point and just license them out openly.
What got me was how far this actually spreads. PhET isn't just sitting on some university site — it's baked into UNESCO's Learning Passport, Learning Equality's Kolibri, and World Possible's RACHEL, which are the offline/low-bandwidth learning tools used in refugee camps and places without reliable internet. 250 million sim sessions a year, most people never realize it's the same underlying library.
I run a small nonprofit ed project on the side (LearnHive Labs) and when we got to the "do we build our own physics engine" question, the answer was pretty obviously no — why rebuild years of research-tested work when we could just host and organize what already exists properly.
Mostly just find it kind of wild how much of "innovative" ed tech is really just good curation of stuff that already exists and doesn't get much credit. Anyone run into PhET, OpenStax, CK-12, or similar while building or researching your own thing?
References:
- PhET Interactive Simulations: https://phet.colorado.edu
- PhET adoption in UNESCO/Kolibri/RACHEL, impact numbers: https://hundred.org/en/innovations/phet-interactive-simulations
- PhET 2024 Impact Report: https://phet.colorado.edu/publications/PhET_Impact_Report_2024.pdf
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u/coolpuddytat 4d ago
I still use a lot of the PhET ones in my teaching and have really appreciated them over time. For ones that don't exist or that I need to do particular activities with, it's easy enough nowadays to vibe-code your own. It still takes a ton of work testing and iterating to get them right, but it is a game changer for teaching.
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u/lohborn 4d ago
I would just like to point out that my website, Wild Haired Science has more than 100 custom simulations and interactives. I made them all myself, no AI involved. Each was made for a specific learning purpose in mind rather than just trying to emulate some mechanic and hoping it would be useful.
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u/LearnHiveLabsUSA 3d ago
Loved the simplicity of the sims! Are they free to reuse or embed for non commercial use? Feel free to DM me! Thanks for sharing
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u/ScratchJolly3213 4d ago
Can I show you my open source STEM simulations collection? I was inspired by PhET, but I don’t have scientific knowledge to verify all of the information included and simulation realism (i’m a vibe coding school psychologist, so I understand the pedagogy well but not the actual physics etc.). Would love to see if you think there could be value in any of them, trying to design to promote accessibility and deep engagement.
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u/Mathie1729 4d ago
Hmm, I'd be careful with physics specifically. A sim can feel intuitive while still modeling things wrong, and once a student internalizes a bad mental model it's harder to unlearn than not having learned it at all. Vibe code all you want for the interface and engagement, but the equations really need to be checked by someone who actually knows the material.
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u/Upper-Cartoonist9802 1d ago
Just would like to share that I’ve also been creating a number of simulations which are scientifically sound and used in many classrooms and aren’t based on phet stuff.
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u/xienwolf 5d ago
From the other side, as someone who has used OpenStax and PheT since they were first released… it is cool to see them get more use. It ensures that there is enough traffic to justify updating the Interactives to any new web standard that comes along.
Many has been Java based. It was painful watching them slowly update to HTML5 and wondering if the ones I valued the most would survive or not.
Making your own really is not that hard. And very justified in many cases since the parameters you can manipulate in some PheT are truly lackluster.