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Connected Chemistry, a novel learning
environment for teaching chemistry, is appropriate
for use in both high school and undergraduate
chemistry classrooms. Connected Chemistry comprises
several molecular simulations designed to enable
instructors to teach chemistry using the perspective
of “emergent phenomena”. That is,
it allows students to see observed macro-level
chemical phenomena, like many other scientific
phenomena, as resultant from the interactions
of many individual agents on a micro-level.
This perspective is especially appropriate
to the study of chemistry where the interactions
between multitudes of molecules on the atomic
level give rise to the macro-level concepts
that students study in the classroom.
Connected Chemistry comprises molecular
simulations embedded in the NetLogo modeling
software (1).
The collection contains several predesigned
simulations of closed chemical systems to
teach specific chemistry concepts. Currently,
Connected Chemistry contains models for teaching
Brønsted–Lowry acid–base
theory, enzyme kinetics, radical polymerization,
buffer chemistry, kinetics, chemical equilibrium,
and crystallization. Instructors and students
can individually tailor the predesigned simulations
or generate new simulations as they are needed
in the context of a particular lesson, classroom,
or department.
Students’ primary interaction with
a Connected Chemistry model occurs
in the interface window (see Figure 1). The
interface displays explicitly the interaction
between the molecular and macroscopic levels
of chemistry through a graphics window and
a plotting window. The graphics
window of each model provides students
with a visualization of a simulated chemical
system in an isolated environment. The behavior
of each simulated molecule in the closed
system results from each graphical agent
executing, in parallel, the procedural rules
that govern its behavior. The graphics window
responds in real-time to any alterations
that a student might make to the system using
a variety of system variables, in the form
of sliders and buttons, available in the
interface. For instance, each molecule individually
responds to changes in temperature or pressure
in the system as a student manipulates the
values of each variable in the interface.
A new molecular animation is not displayed;
rather, each molecule adjusts its behavior
as it detects changes to the system variables.
Through such a design, Connected Chemistry affords
students an opportunity to observe how their
alterations to the system generate reciprocal
effects between the macro-level variables
and molecular-level interactions.
Figure
1. Every Connected Chemistry simulation
contains an interface window with a graphics
windw, plotting window, and system variables.
Connected Chemistry has many kinds
of uses in any chemistry classroom. The accompanying
article details three possible applications
that have been piloted in high school general
chemistry, first as a visualization tool with
which instructors can demonstrate abstract
concepts to the entire classroom for illustration
and discussion; second, as a laboratory
simulator to allow students to observe
the molecular interactions that they are
investigating in the laboratory on the macroscopic
level; third, as a feedback tool when
studying or problem solving.
None of the Connected Chemistry applications
described requires any computer programming
in the NetLogo modeling language. However, Connected
Chemistry includes interface tools that
allow more sophistocated users to alter or
manipulate a simulation’s procedural
rules. This can yield even greater benefits
from Connected Chemistry.
Literature Cited
- Wilensky, U. NetLogo.
Center for Connected Learning and Computer
Based Modeling, Northwestern Univ.: Evanston,
IL. (accessed Jan 2005).
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