Wynne Feather writing for Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia
May 2003
Crocodile Chemistry is an alternative to practical Chemistry. If your technician is on sick leave, if there is not enough equipment for you to do the experiment in the classroom, if the class is one of those untrustworthy with chemicals, if you do not have a fume cupboard in your lab and you do not want to ask to swap rooms yet again, or if, as some classes do, the pupils would prefer to use a computer rather than get their hands on the real thing, then it would be worth getting your head round this piece of software. There are no instructions with the CD-ROM, but the help file is all you will need. It took me a Saturday morning of playing around with the package until I became familiar with what it was capable of. I sat with a revision book picking out different types of chemical reactions - neutralisation, thermal decomposition, rates of reaction, reactivity series etc. and played around until I worked out how I could do them. There is a very good help file, which explains all of the features of Crocodile Chemistry, but it is difficult to take in all in one go, so I found it easier to keep trying experiments and referring back to the help file as I went along.
My Saturday morning learning to use this software was a pleasant experience, rather than a chore because it was good fun!! Mind you I am not a 16 year old who is used to advanced computer graphics, but I liked pouring the chemicals from one vessel to another, watching the colours change, or a precipitate settling out, or gas bubbles forming, or the explosive effects you can get with some concoctions and I think many students will too.
The product could be used with a whole class, or by individuals/ small groups to break up a theory lesson or for teacher demonstration particularly if you have a whiteboard.
The program does demand some fiddly manoeuvres to get the equipment in the right place to pour solutions from one place to another, so if your pupils have difficulty using a mouse accurately, or your computers have mouse balls that regularly stick, then you may end up with frustrated pupils.
The package would stretch those more able Chemistry students as you can alter amounts, concentrations and temperatures and draw corresponding graphs.
All in all, a CD-ROM that is useful, practical, educational and fun.
I teach Chemistry to three Year 11 groups - the top two sets and the bottom set. I decided to write a worksheet for them to use, which would form a revision lesson. I chose two very bright pupils from the top set and four average ability, but well motivated from the second set. There are usually only eight pupils in my bottom set and they work well together, so I decided to try it with them and let them go through the worksheet as a group.
I have a computer in my room linked to the network. Pupils worked on this during a 50-minute lesson.
I made the worksheet instructions detailed, so that the pupils could work independently. The worksheet directed pupils through four experiments, which they were to conduct on thermal decomposition of calcium carbonate, neutralisation of nitric acid and ammonia solution, reactions of metals with water and acids and rates of reaction using magnesium and hydrochloric acid.
The pairs of students were left to work independently with the worksheet. All six pupils managed to complete the worksheet with only a few calls for assistance. It took them the best part of the lesson to finish it. They had a set of headphones between them and took turns one using the mouse while the other read the instructions. Two likened it to Crocodile Clips, which they used in DT.
All enjoyed using it. It was a different way to learn. None had any problems using it.
The group of students similarly enjoyed using it. This group has major Literacy problems, but they had no difficulty matching the words on the worksheet to the screen and the icons were readily remembered. The next lesson, one pupil was telling another pupil, who had missed the previous lesson, with unusual enthusiasm about the last lesson when they had been doing experiments on the computer!!