Chemistry Tasks For the Computer Lab? 154
soupman55 writes "I teach Chemistry to students completing their last two years of high school. Basically it's a 'teach and test' course with a few experiments thrown in. I want to jazz up the course using computer and internet resources. For instance, I could set some tasks that require Excel spreadsheet calculations. Or I could set some web quests where students search for information online. One of the decisions to be made is: Do I use computer/internet tasks to help the students grasp the material that is already in the course, or do I help them become aware of ideas that are extensions to their course? Also, when I compare Chemistry classes with Accounting classes, it strikes me that unlike Accounting where learning to use software like Quick Books is an integral part of the course, that there is no particular software that a chemistry student must learn to use. Or is there? What in terms of chemistry and computers worked for you? Or what is there computer-wise that wasn't in your high school chemistry course but should have been?"
Re:Perfect for a chemistry class (Score:3, Informative)
Dishwasher makes a keyboard like new.
dunno... (Score:3, Informative)
The only use I can think of is for balancing equations to work out, say, how much hydrochloric acid reacts with so many grams of sodium hydroxide. You could use vlookup (or similar) to save looking up molar masses or atomic weights, for example.
From the open source world (Score:3, Informative)
Jmol [sourceforge.net] is pretty good.
ChemDraw is useful, but be wary. (Score:3, Informative)
Chemical structure drawing tools are extremely important with ChemDraw being mandatory learning at many universities, including my own. Check this list [wikipedia.org] out for a list of many similar programs including FOSS equivalents.
Beyond that, the biggest two uses of computers in higher levels of chemistry are for literature searching (with SciFinder being a clear winner here) and computational chemistry calculations (still unfortunately done mostly on with the anti-FOSS Gaussian software) though there's no shortage of excellent open source equivalents. Avogradro, for example.
However, literature searches aren't going to be too useful without the journal access that Universities enjoy, and frankly most computational chemistry programs are too sophisticated for students of a high school level - though 3D models of chemical structures are always much more interesting. Since chemistry is still taught by using ballpark descriptions and approximations, then successively refining those approximations, I'd be worried that almost any piece of chemistry software would be too intimidating and difficult to explain because it's designed for users with at least a year or two of university courses.
So, I'd think that teaching the students how to draw good structures (with stereochemical accuracy if possible!) on computers would be useful, and maybe 3D structures would be somewhat inspiring, but you're running the risk of over-complicating what should be a course in the fundamentals. If you have the means, you might want to focus on real demonstrations instead, which could be as simple as a marbles to demonstrate entropy, vinegar and sodium bicarbonate for acid/base chemistry, cornstarch and water to demonstrate non-newtonian fluids, alkali metals and water to demonstrate redox chemistry, salt and ice/water to demonstrate boiling point elevation and freezing point depression, etc. etc.
Re:LaTeX (Score:3, Informative)
Math Math Math (Score:5, Informative)
My friend is a university chemistry professor. She has complained endlessly that her incoming students lack fundamental math skills. They mindlessly write down whatever their calculator tells them even though it may be off by many orders of magnitude. They are unable to formulate or solve simple ratios and they have almost no concept of significant digits. I know these aren't chemistry skills but if you want students to succeed in college chemistry, I think it would help if you substantially reinforce the math while you are introducing basic chemistry topics.
Teach and Test and no experiments.... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to rant for a second.
It is classes like this that have made my job even harder. I teach college level chemistry (general, organic, and analytical). We have so many students who have come with "chemistry" on their high school transcript, but when they get into the first general chemistry class, they don't remember anything. Chemistry, as with most sciences is an experiential course, you HAVE to DO in order to learn. otherwise it's just memorizing facts from a book for some test, then that information is promptly forgotten (or more precisely inaccessible, since they are not being asked the same stupid test question)
With the number of students who have a visual and experiential learning styles, I find it sad that we do not have better science students coming out of high school.
I know it's not your fault, it's no child left behind and administrations that believe the only assessment of learning is a standardized test. I know chem teachers in my area who have had their labs shut down because of adminstrators who don't seem to want to understand what it takes to have a safe lab, and thus the first problem and everything is removed and you are relegated to theory only.
Also I have to agree with others, too much emphasis has been placed on calculators and the like in high school I have students who can't divide by 10 without their calculator, not that they can't do it, but because they are trained to need to do it. Also include some basic algebra, solve for x. make sure that you go over word problems and show them out it is a simple ratio or a straight line equation that just needs to be manipulated. All of these are simple skills that they should get out of high school, but seemingly don't.
That said I do have some ideas for resources.
one good place to check out is the chemcollective at http://www.chemcollective.org/ [chemcollective.org] they have a lot of online simulators, including a virtual gen chem lab (although I find it rather limited). it is funded by the National Science Foundation and is part of the National Science Digital Library.
Also check out the rest of the NSDL. they have online and software resources for most sciences for K-12 and higher ed (don't be afraid to look at materials higher than the grade you are teaching, give them an extra challenge to apply their materials.
Maybe include some kitchen chemistry.
Someone mentioned chemdraw, It is the defacto standard in the industry and I used it for 10+ years. However, I highly recommend ChemSketch from ACD/Labs. they have a full featured free version that does nearly everything chemdraw can do and sometimes more. it does full IUPAC nomenclature w/ stereochemistry. it even interfaces with several online databases, such as pubchem.
As for excel, it can be useful, but mainly for crunching lab data. I can teach a student excel in a 1/2 of lab period, but their low algebra skills makes it difficult for them (and painful for me) to convert what we are doing in the lab to mathematical equations in excel.
lastly, check out the journal of chemical education. If you have access to it great. If not, it's not an expensive journal and it has a lot of good resources, both lab and computer.