The goal of education is imparting the ability to apply new knowledge acquiredin the classroom to real-world problems. This requires the student to be ableto make the connections that link the theory to reality.
Students mustunderstand what they know and when that knowledge is useful.
Hands-onexperience makes the process of creating these connections easier for thestudent. Traditional education has attempted to solve thisproblem in a number of different ways, including laboratory classes and co-oplearning. In some fields real experience, even laboratory experience, can beexpensive or dangerous. Furthermore, real world systems often do not encourageobservations that can be directly linked to the classroom theory. We propose to use computer simulations to offer the students the opportunity todo problem-solving and design in contexts similar to that of the real world.