EXPlainistry: Creating Documentation, Explanations, and Animated Visualizations of Chemistry Experiments Supported by Information and Communication Technology To Help School Students Understand Molecular-Level Interactions

Abstract

Given that students are constantly communicating and documenting special experiences in their social and private lives with digital devices, we suggest that this behavior could be used to record and deepen learning experiences—such as visualizing reactions at the molecular level—in a chemistry class. An example would be the creation of stop-motion videos to aid the visualization process for the documentation of experiments. This approach makes use of well-established techniques for documentation and visualization (e.g., static models or pictures) and combines them with dynamic approaches (e.g., animations) in order to enhance explanations of chemical experiments. Here, we describe how we use this approach to augment the novel teaching method, EXPlainistry (experiments explained in chemistry) with 5th to 12th graders, and consider how it helps students use ICT (information and communications technology) in order to document, explain, and visualize experiments in chemistry education.