Abstract:

Chemistry teachers from mexican middle school institution “Colegio Madrid”, have designed (over the past recent years) a series of activities that students solve in computer laboratories as part of teaching strategies developed for the chemistry course (grade 9 of our education system.) The objective of this contribution is to share and discuss the results in the application of these new and significant instructional tools for our students. The three activities presented were designed for one specific purpose: help and improve understanding processes on concepts or habilities of known difficulty such as abstract modeling and complex, expensive and/or dangerous lab activities. The Moodle platform has been used for this purpose with good results. The activities described include, among others, the following themes: periodic table, chemical bonding and the mole concept. Students get involved and learn from answering questionnaires, make drawings, conduct project work research on the Internet, play games to help remember the element’s symbols, observe simulations to interpret graphs, and design an Excel sheet to figure how to calculate the molar masses. Results have shown that simulations and analogies support model construction processes on students and improve understanding and performing levels of normally difficult chemical concepts.

Keywords:

Chemistry.