Secondary School Feature Articles

* Amino Acid Wordsearch, by Terry L. Helser, p 495. Games, Puzzles, and Humor

In honor of April Fools' Day this issue contains 22 pages devoted to games and puzzles that can be used to teach aspects of chemistry. Most are designed for high school and first-year college students. The lead article, p 481, contains an annotated bibliography of chemistry games, complete with a vendor list. Many of the annotated games must be purchased, but the other articles that follow in this issue describe some games and puzzles that require minimal preparation using a word processor and readily available materials.

Actually, JCE has a long tradition of publishing games and puzzles for chemistry teachers and their students. Read the letter by Helser and the Editor's response, p 468, for some recent background. Not having counted articles over past years, I became curious and turned to the online index, accessed by way of http://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/. Because I wanted to search the entire 75-year life of the Journal, I searched titles for the words "game", "puzzle", and "humor" and obtained a total of 85 hits from the three searches. After eliminating titles of articles that were not applicable, I found that at least 25 games, 48 puzzles, and 5 humor articles have appeared during the past 75 years. At an average of one per year, the JCE editors hardly can be accused of frivolity, but game, puzzle, and humor articles have been published.

The term "game" did not appear in any titles during 1945-1970, "puzzle" did not appear from 1927 to 1953, and there was no mention of humor (in the titles) prior to 1974. What appears to be the earliest article (1929) about a game was authored by an undergraduate student at the University of Colorado (1). It was titled "Chemical Bank", and the game pieces were tokens cut from cork stoppers. Wire hooks were inserted in the side of the token to represent valence electrons available for bonding. Carbon contained 4 hooks at 90° relative to each other, nitrogen contained three hooks at 120°, etc. The wires were sufficiently long and flexible that multiple bonding could be represented. Each player was dealt several game pieces and the first player received an extra carbon. The objective was to hook pieces together to make an acceptable molecule. Players took turns and the first player to use all his or her pieces was declared the winner.

The first crossword puzzle to appear in JCE was written by a high school teacher from Hollywood, California (2). Ruth Van Vleet had observed that her students were caught up in the popularity of crossword puzzles of the time (1925) and used that interest to help students learn chemical facts. The puzzle published in the article was submitted by one of her students after completing one year of chemistry.

The first article which carried the term "humor" in the title was published in 1974 (3). To meet the requirements of a class assignment to compare two elements, one student wrote an imaginary dialog between ytterbium and lutetium. Word play and puns were used to described similar and differing properties of the two elements. This article, however, was not the first account of using humor as a vehicle for stimulating student interest.

Games, puzzles, and humor certainly can be overused. Usually they do not lead to the development of conceptual understanding. However, appropriate use, as many JCE readers have discovered, can stimulate student interest and reinforce factual knowledge. Some strategy games may help develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. The games, humor, and puzzles published in JCE are peer-reviewed so that inaccuracies and errors are not perpetuated. So why not take advantage of this resource? And look forward to next April, or whenever, for more games, puzzles, and humor.

Feedback Requested for View from My Classroom Feature

David Byrum, editor of the View From My Classroom feature, requests the assistance of readers. During a recent conference on the preparation of new teachers, a question was asked about what specific ideas, procedures, concepts, and skills teachers wished that they had known more about as they started their first job. Some of the responses at the conference were:

• How to choose which concepts/ideas/skills to teach
• How to justify which concepts/ideas/skills to leave out
• How to set up the equipment and supplies needed for common experiments
• How to choose, set up, and perform useful demonstrations
• How to order materials and supplies for the classroom and laboratory
• How district, school, and department budgets work and how to order for the classroom or laboratory

David would like to know what your thoughts are in regard to the question posed. What would you have liked to know more about as you started your teaching career? What information would have allowed you to miss a few of those potholes in your first few years of teaching? What information would have helped you raise your teaching to a higher level?

Please take a few minutes to write your thoughts down and send them to David. Since this should be as quick and painless as possible, email is the preferred method. His email address is DavidB1032@aol.com.

If you are without email, please send your comments to David L. Byrum, Flowing Wells High School, 3725 N. Flowing Wells Road, Tucson, AZ 85705.

Literature Cited

1. James, H. J. Chem. Educ. 1929, 6, 1790-1792.

2. Van Vleet, R. C. J. Chem. Educ. 1925, 2, 292-294.

3. Levine, B; Myers, S. C. J. Chem. Educ. 1974, 51, 564.