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computer simulations of gases

1/28/2015

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Happy Wednesday!  I hope your classes are going well and that the winter weather has not been too rough for you.

There isn't much money left in most 2014-2015 science department budgets.  For inexpensive chemistry lab ideas, buy my lab book "Chemistry on a Budget" for $20.56 at amazon.com or $23 at lulu.com. It will take a few weeks to get to you, so order now! 

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

This book contains 13 labs using consumable materials purchased from local stores.  There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report.  This way the teacher has the option!  Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

My recent blog post discussed Gay-Lussac’s Law, the direct relationship between the pressure and temperature of a gas.    I previously discussed the Ideal Gas Law on 02/09/2014.  There I discussed the lab reacting Magnesium metal with Hydrochloric Acid in a eudiometer tube.


Another way to collect a gas and measure variables to determine the Ideal Gas Constant is also presented in my book “Chemistry on a Budget”.

During my research for other lab ideas, I found a page at the American Chemical Society website that includes several sites that are very useful:

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/highschool/chemistryclubs/activities/simulations.html

Here are four sites useful for gas law work.  Perhaps you could project some of these simulations for lecture use, assign it to students if you have classroom access to the Internet, or assign work at these websites as extra credit.

 PhET Interactive Simulations

                  http://phet.colorado.edu/
 
“PhET, based at the University of Colorado at Boulder, offers a wide range of interactive simulations in all sciences, with over three dozen chemistry-based simulations. The site states the simulations are extensively tested and evaluated.”

There are several simulations that apply to chemistry, including a “States of Matter: Basics” that might be useful projected for a class lecture.


Gas Laws: A simulated experiment


http://group.chem.iastate.edu/Greenbowe/sections/projectfolder/simDownload/index4.html#thermoChem

“Iowa State University’s Professor Tom Greenbowe shares many simulations and animations in ten major areas of chemistry, such as gas laws, stoichiometry, kinetics, and more.”


Virtual Chemistry Experiments

http://www.chm.davidson.edu/vce/index.html

“Professor David N. Blauch from Davidson College presents several interactive experiment simulations on topics such as equilibrium, kinetics, crystal structure, phase changes, gases, and more.”

Check out the section on Gas Laws (to the right of the page).


Chemistry Experiment Simulations and Conceptual Computer Animations http://group.chem.iastate.edu/Greenbowe/sections/projectfolder/simDownload/index4.html#thermoChem

“Iowa State University’s Professor Tom Greenbowe shares many simulations and animations in ten major areas of chemistry, such as gas laws, stoichiometry, kinetics, and more.”  

You would have to download the programs to your computer to run – make sure of the policy of downloading from the Internet if it’s a school computer, and heed any warning that your computer virus software provides! 

Many of these sites require Java software to run – make sure you have the latest version.  Here is a site for a free download:

https://java.com/en/download/

 I’d love to hear about your own discoveries from this resource!  I will probably be using it for other topics as well.

Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries. 

Have a good weekend!



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    Marjorie R. Heesemann is a chemistry teacher with 15 years of experience who is now working to develop resources for the Chemistry classroom.

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