How to Embed a Simulation in Google Sites

Many teachers run a class website in Google Sites: one place for notes, links and tasks that works on any device. You can embed a simulation in Google Sites so students run a virtual experiment right on the unit page, without leaving the site and without an account. This guide shows you how to do it with Simulic: copy the embed code, add it with Insert → Embed → Embed code, drag the box to the right height and organize several simulations into one page per unit. It ends with fixes for the problems teachers hit most often: a blank box, a cut-off simulation and answers from different classes getting mixed.

What you need

• A free Simulic teacher account. Students never need one.
• Edit access to the Google Site (you own it or someone shared it with you as an editor).
• The simulations for your unit. This guide builds a page for a unit on light.
• Ten minutes to test the published page on a phone and on a school laptop.

Plan the site: one page per unit

Before you embed anything, decide where each simulation will live. A structure that works well for most classes:

• Home page: what the site is for, the class name and the current unit at the top.
• One page per unit: "Light", "Electricity", "Forces". Each unit page holds two to four simulations, each with a short task above it.
• No simulation on the home page. Students land there first, and a heavy page on a slow school network is a bad start.

One page per unit loads faster, because each embedded simulation loads its own frame, and students find this week's work without scrolling past last month's.

For the light unit, a good set is:

1. Light rays: refraction, total internal reflection and prisms, the main lab.
2. Reflection on a plane mirror, for a warm-up.
3. Lenses and curved mirrors: ray diagrams, for the second lesson.

Step 1: Create one link per simulation

Every embed code belongs to a share link. Create the links in Simulic first.

1. Open the simulation page and click Share.
2. On the Simulation tab, set the starting values you want students to begin with. For the refraction lab, choose the Intro screen with air on top and water below. These settings are pinned to the new link.
3. Go to the Share Links tab. Under New link, give the link a name such as "Light · Refraction · Grade 8", choose the Language and click Create link.
4. In the link card, open Embed code and click Copy embed code.

Name links after the unit and the site, so you know later where each embed lives.

Step 2: Add the embed code with Insert → Embed

1. Open your Google Site in edit mode and go to the unit page.
2. Add a text box with the task first, for example: "Find the angle of refraction when light goes from air into water at 45°."
3. Choose Insert → Embed.
4. Choose Embed code (not a web address), paste the code from Simulic and confirm.
5. The simulation appears in a box on the page. Move it under the task text.

At the time of writing, these are the menu names in Google Sites. Google updates its editor from time to time, so if a label looks different, look for the option that inserts embed code. The in-app embed help page keeps the short version for Google Sites and other platforms.

The embed code ends with a line "Simulation by Simulic". It sits inside the box under the simulation.

Step 3: Drag the box to the right height

Google Sites shows embedded code in its own box, and the box keeps the size you give it. The script at the end of the embed code cannot make that box grow, so if the content is taller, students must scroll inside the box, which is easy to miss. Set the height yourself:

1. Click the box to select it.
2. Drag the bottom edge down until the whole simulation and anything below it shows.
3. Drag the side handles so the box uses the full width of the section. Simulations are much easier to use wide.

As a starting point:

• Simulation only: about the height of a laptop screen.
• With 2–3 questions below it: a third taller.
• With 5 questions and predictions: about twice as tall as the simulation alone.

Then preview the page. Google Sites has a preview that switches between phone, tablet and computer widths. Check the phone view: the box must still show the simulation's buttons.

Try what your students will see

This is the refraction lab embedded the same way it will sit on your unit page. Drag the laser and read the angles.

With air on top and water below (n = 1.33), an angle of incidence of 45° gives an angle of refraction of about 32°. Switch the bottom medium to glass (n = 1.50) and the same 45° bends to about 28°. Now swap the media so the light goes from glass into air and raise the angle: past about 41.8°, the refracted ray disappears and you get total internal reflection. For water into air, the critical angle is about 48.8°.

Those numbers make a good task for the unit page: "Find the critical angle for glass and for water. Which material traps light more easily?"

Collect answers on the page

Google Sites has no built-in way to collect answers, but the Simulic link can. On the Questions tab of the Share page, build a question set and pick it for the link. The questions appear inside the box, below the simulation, and students answer with a nickname. Two examples for the light page:

• Number: "Light goes from air into water at 45°. What is the angle of refraction?" Answer 32°, tolerance ± 1.
• Multiple choice: "Total internal reflection can happen when light goes from…" Correct: glass into air (from the denser medium into the less dense one).

You see the answers on the link card, and Download CSV gives you a spreadsheet. Ask students for a nickname or first name only. The free plan collects 100 student answers a month. The full walkthrough is in collect student answers without student accounts.

Remember to make the box taller once questions are attached.

Publish and share the site

Publish the site as you normally do, then open it as a student would. Check who can view it: if the site is limited to your school's Google domain, students must be signed in to their school account to open the page. Simulic itself still needs no account and sets no cookies.

If you also use Google Classroom, post the site address there once, rather than each simulation. For posting a single simulation to a class, see how to add a simulation to Google Classroom.

Troubleshooting

The box is blank

Open the simulation's play link directly in the same browser. If that also fails on school devices only, a web filter is probably blocking simulic.com; ask your IT team to allow it. If the play link works but the box stays empty, delete the box and paste the embed code again, making sure you chose Embed code and copied the whole code.

The simulation is cut off

The box is too short. Select it and drag the bottom edge down. This is the most common problem on Google Sites, especially after you attach questions.

The box says the link is not available or has expired

"This Simulic link is no longer available" means the link is turned off: click Turn on link on the Share page. "This Simulic link has expired" means a last day was set in the Pro Options; change or clear it.

Answers from different classes are mixed

One embed code means one link, and one link collects all its answers together. If several classes share one site, either make a copy of the unit page for each class with its own link (Duplicate on the link card gives you a copy with the same settings and question set), or ask students to start their nickname with their class, such as "8B-Sam".

For other platforms, see the guide to embedding a simulation in your LMS.

FAQ

Do students need a Google account to use the embedded simulation?

Not for Simulic. Students need whatever your site's sharing settings require: nothing for a public site, a school account for a site limited to your domain.

Can I put several simulations on one Google Sites page?

Yes. Each one gets its own embed box. Keep it to two to four per page so the page loads quickly on school networks and phones.

Why doesn't the box grow when I add questions?

Google Sites keeps its box at the size you set. Drag the bottom edge down after adding questions.

Does the embed work when browsers block third-party cookies?

Yes. The embed sets no cookies, so it keeps working inside Google Sites in any browser.