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Use of spreadsheet simulations in university chemistry education

journal contribution
posted on 2006-01-01, 00:00 authored by Kieran LimKieran Lim
Students who are strong in logical-mathematical intelligence have a natural advantage in learning and understanding chemistry, which is full of abstractions that are remote from the material world. Simulations provide more-inclusive learning activities for students who are weak in logical-mathematical intelligence.

A second advantage of using simulations is that they are not limited by (for example) the quantised energies, integral masses and discrete expectation values of real atoms and molecules. Numerical experiments can be used to investigate the effect of continuously varying atomic mass, bond distance or any other property, from one value to another.

Finally, students are more familiar with spreadsheets than more advanced mathematical packages such as MathCAD, MAPLE, Mathematica and other symbolic algebra software. Use of these advanced packages presents additional learning hurdles for students and should be used only for advanced classes. Furthermore, spreadsheets are capable of a level of sophistication that is greater than commonly expected. This can be achieved without the use of MACROs.

Examples from the author's teaching are used to discuss the advantages of spreadsheet simulations for learning chemistry.

History

Journal

Journal of computer chemistry

Volume

5

Pagination

139 - 146

Location

Japan

Open access

  • Yes

ISSN

1347-1767

eISSN

1347-3824

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

Copyright 2006 Society of Computer Chemistry, Japan. This paper was published in “Kieran Lim, J. Comput. Chem. Jpn., vol.5, no.3, 139-146, 2006. The Internet address of the above Journal is as follows: http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jccj/5/3/5_139/_article

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