Beaker-vitual chem experiments PDF

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App Review: Beaker (ver. 23)  

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Jane Paul

Downloadable via both Apple and Android app stores. Free for basic app tools; access to all tools is $0.99 Regular upgrades not required No ads Best on mobile devices such as phones and tablets, as Airmix is one of its coolest features. Suitable for Grade 9 Science and above, but particularly for the Grade 10 Chemistry unit, as the curriculum discusses the rearrangement of atoms in chemical reactions, and Grade 11/12 Chemistry, as it could apply to many parts of the curriculum, or even act as a review tool.

Summary of the app Beaker gives students an opportunity to try a wide variety of chemistry experiments without the danger of hurting themselves or blowing up their school lab. The free features of the app include some basic lab tools: a burner, a lid for the beaker, a match, and the ability to ‘airmix’, or pour the contents of one beaker into someone else’s beaker (using Bluetooth). These free features provide lots of options for interesting reactions, but for $0.99, you can also unlock a filter, a separator, a cooler, and a blender. In addition to these tools, you have access to 150 different chemicals that you can add to the beaker and see what happens! The app’s chemical options are split into a first page, which includes some essentials such as water, litmus, bromine, acetic acid, etc., as well as some coloured dyes to add to your solution. The following pages list chemicals from Silver to Zinc Sulfate and include a stylized version of what they might look like. You can choose to have these chemicals listed by name, by elemental symbol, or by symbol and g/cm3, g/mol, or g/100ml. When you mix two chemicals, their chemical formula pops up on the beaker, and an animation in the beaker shows how the reaction would look, which ranges from no reaction

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to explosive. When you’re finished with your chemical reaction, you can simply dump your breaker out by tipping your phone upside down. As a teacher, I would be interested in using this app to illustrate what can happen if care is not taken in a lab—perhaps the school lab stocks two chemicals that together, would be dangerous. Beaker would give the students a chance to see what would actually happen when they combine the two chemicals, without the risk. The app also allows students to test their knowledge by predicting chemical reactions and to carry them out to see what happens. One could assign each student a solution or chemical, and pair them with another student, and then the students could mix their solutions to see what happens; the app could allow for some great collaboration. This app also has the potential to help students with anxiety around experiments try the experiment in a safe way first, so they have some idea of what to expect in the real lab. Concerns/ Cautions for teachers Firstly, this app does not teach lab safety well. Because the students are using their phone to simulate experiments, they do not have to think about safety equipment, cleanup/ disposal, or proper usage of tools and glassware. If not discussed with one’s students, this could lead to negligence in the real-life lab. Secondly, this app has many options—too many; without specific guidance from a teacher, a student could easily get lost in the app and not know what to do with it. Lastly, I would not say this app promotes any insidious scientific misconceptions, except for maybe that chemists just mix things together to see what happens, which is certainly not all they do. Overall, I think this is a really fun app with lots of

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possibilities for use in the classroom. So long as the appropriate accompanying discussions are had in class, I see no issue with students using this as a chemistry tool.

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