Give Every Student Access to the STEM Lab with Virtual Science Labs in Canvas
30 June, 2026
A science class has thirty curious students and twelve lab stations. Add an occupancy limit, a chemicals budget, a fixed period in the schedule, and the three students who were out sick on lab day, and “everyone does the experiment” quietly becomes “most students watch someone else do the experiment.” The appetite for hands-on science was never the problem. The bench was.
That’s the gap virtual science labs in Canvas are built to close. Not by replacing the bench by widening who gets to do real science, and how often. Constructor Practice brings curriculum-aligned virtual experiments directly into the Canvas your school already runs, so students form a hypothesis, change variables, run the experiment, see what happens, and get real-time feedback, with no physical materials and no cleanup.
The access problem isn’t demand — it’s capacity
Lab seats, equipment, consumables, safety rules, and the calendar all cap how much hands-on science a school can offer. Online and hybrid sections, overflow classes, and make-up days stretch that capacity even thinner. The students who lose out are rarely the least interested they’re just the ones who didn’t fit in the room that day.
What a virtual lab actually is
It’s scientific inquiry, not a video. In online labs in Canvas, students still predict, test, measure, and interpret the difference is the experiment isn’t limited by a schedule, a budget, or a hazard. Virtual chemistry and biology labs (plus physics and environmental science) let a student repeat a titration until it clicks, push a reaction to a dangerous extreme safely, or run a population model overnight — things a physical bench can’t always allow.
It lives inside Canvas, so teachers don’t learn a new system
Constructor Practice Science Labs is a STEM labs LMS integration in the Canvas Marketplace. Teachers assign, track, and grade labs like any other Canvas activity, and students stay in the platform they already use, with no extra logins, no separate portal, and no new gradebook to reconcile.
Where schools put it to work
Most schools don’t use virtual labs to retire the bench. They use them to reach the students the bench can’t:
Online, hybrid, and overflow sections
that don’t have lab access on a given day.
Pre-lab prep
So students arrive at the physical bench already knowing the steps and the safety.
Make-ups and absences,
So a missed day doesn’t mean a missed experiment.
Equity across buildings,
so every classroom gets the same experiment regardless of which lab it’s assigned.
Verified partner: Constructor (Constructor Technology AG) is a verified Instructure partner.
FAQs
Which subjects are covered?
Curriculum-aligned experiments across science disciplines, including chemistry, biology, physics, and environmental science. Ask us for the catalog that matches your courses.
Do virtual labs replace physical labs?
No. They expand access. Many schools use them alongside the bench for online, hybrid, and overflow sections, pre-lab prep, and make-ups.
How do teachers assign and grade labs?
Inside Canvas, like any other activity, with no separate gradebook to manage.
Is it safe — no chemicals or equipment to manage?
Yes. There are no physical materials, no cleanup, and no hazards, which is part of why virtual labs scale so well.
How does it integrate with Canvas?
As a Canvas Marketplace app, so it fits alongside the tools your school already uses.
