Real and virtual bioreactor laboratory sessions by STSE–CLIL WebQuest

•An innovative WebQuest methodology with STSE–CLIL approach was developed.•The STSE–CLIL Webquest integrates real and virtual bioreactor laboratory sessions.•This teaching approach introduces students to the international scientific world.•This tool empowers independent work of students.•Students are more motivated and learn more with this kind of laboratory sessions.

An innovative teaching methodology, which incorporates all the advantages offered separately by WebQuest (an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web), CLIL (Content Language Integrated Learning) and STSE (Science, Technology, Society and Environment) was developed to integrate real bioreactor experiments to produce ecological bioethanol with virtual bioreactor computer simulation. Thus, by means of this type of WebQuest, it is possible to connect STSE real laboratory sessions in a Spanish university with CLIL sessions in English in a virtual foreign laboratory through the Internet introducing students to the international scientific world.This teaching approach can be very helpful solving the common problem of limited time to conduct enough applied practical contents, it empowers independent work of students and it is technologically adapted to the times we live.The effectiveness of the implemented system was obtained by evaluation through direct experimentation, assessment (with a rubric for the laboratory session reports and a written test) and survey (through a questionnaire) with 40 undergraduate students. All these results show that students are more motivated and learn more following this kind of laboratory sessions.