Enzymatic activity is at the core of biological reactions. Understanding them and the chemical and environmental factors that affect reaction rates is critical for biology students. The laboratory experiment proposed here investigated these concepts, while requiring students to document, graph data, analyse results using statistics, and…

In this article we propose that educational game design should work to create games as objects-to-think-with--games that engage players in the exploration of and experimentation with personally interesting questions around domain-relevant representations. We argue that this design focuses on developing tools and interactions that the player can…

At an early stage of learning quantum chemistry, undergraduate students usually encounter the concepts of the particle in a box, the harmonic oscillator, and then the particle on a sphere. Rotational levels of a diatomic molecule can be well approximated by the energy levels of the particle on a sphere. Wave functions for the particle in a…

This article presents the characteristics of using a tangible table top environment produced by augmented reality (AR), aimed at improving the environment in which learners observe three-dimensional molecular structures. The authors perform two evaluation experiments. A performance test for a user interface demonstrates that learners with a…

In this paper we derive an expression for the dynamic electric polarizability of a particle bound by a double delta potential for frequencies below and above the absolute value of the particle's ground state energy. The derived expression will be used to study some of the fundamental features of the system and its representation of real systems.…

Phase changes and intermolecular forces are important physical science concepts but are not always easy to present in an active learning format. This article presents several interactive activities in which students plot the melting points of some fatty acids and explore the effect that the nanoscale size and shape of molecules have on the…

The kinetics experiments on the ligand-C[subscript 60] exchange reactions on (dihapto-[60]fullerene) pentacarbonyl tungsten(0), ([eta][superscript 2]-C[subscript 60])W(CO)[subscript 5], form an educational activity for the inorganic chemistry laboratory that promotes graphical thinking as well as the understanding of kinetics, mechanisms, and the…

Explores graph theory and use of topological indices to predict boiling points. Lists three indices: Wiener Number, Randic Branching Index and Molecular Connectivity, and Molecular Identification numbers. Warns of inadequacies with stereochemistry. (ML)

Investigates ground state electron configurations for some common elements using graphical methods. Bases observed tendencies on following ideas: "occupancy of differing shells, occupancy of differing subshells within a given shell, double occupancy vs. single occupancy of an orbital, and quantum-mechanical exchange." (ML)

Discusses the use of graph theory to aid in the depiction of organic molecular structures. Gives a historical perspective of graph theory and explains graph theory terminology with organic examples. Lists applications of graph theory to current research projects. (ML)