Abstract:

Learning Chemistry in the Spanish Conservation of Cultural Heritage Degree (CHD) is challenging. The chemistry of cultural heritage is very complex, including a wide range of materials, chemical processes, and procedures. In addition, students have read humanistic studies and have basic scientific knowledge. On the other hand, pedagogical studies have demonstrated the importance of developing mental imaging abilities in Chemistry students. This contribution aims to present the excellent results of the teaching experience in the last five years developing "thought-revealing activities" as "art happenings." Happenings are alternative art manifestations aimed at generating a reaction in public, challenging the audience to break down conventional ideas and to think in new and unconventional ways. In an art happening, the audience is called to act in an environment the artist staged. Here, happening-like-thought-revealing activities (HLTRA) are used in Chemistry learning to induce in the learners a conceptual change. HLTRA is conceived as a dynamic learning method based on active role games in which learners use their bodies and spatial relationships with other objects. HLTRA can be applied to complex concepts requiring mental and spatial imaging skills. For implementing HLTRA, the teacher takes advantage of the excellent background of the CHD students in spatial imaging and human anatomy.

Description of HLTRAs:
1) Methane molecule: students organized in 5-members teams are invited to build CH4 molecule. Straightforward building rules are given: students adopt the role of hydrogen and carbon atoms. C-H covalent bonds are formed by holding hands and jointing feet in an orthogonal spatial distribution.
2) Ramified hydrocarbon molecule: Students are invited to build the molecule of 3-ethylhexane by establishing C-C covalent bonds in the main chain by jointing feet. To maintain the orthogonality of the ternary C3 carbon, the C3-student should arrange the C-C bonds in the main chain by jointing feet with its colleagues at right and left and in the secondary branch by holding hands with its C-student colleague in the branch.
3) Discrimination between intra- and intermolecular bonds: each three-student team builds a water molecule forming strong and short covalent bonds by crossing arms between the hydrogen-students and the oxygen-student. Then, the teacher asks the students to establish hydrogen bridges using larger sports rubber bands.
4) Vibrational modes of molecules: the learners adopt the role of atoms in a three-atom molecule and represent the vibrational modes of the molecule by simulating the vibrational movements in space.
5) The atomic crust structure: the learners adopt the role of electrons (e) that move in the space region corresponding to different orbitals. Each couple of e-learners moves through the area of its orbital (signed with beacon cones) and must be as far as possible from the other e-learners.
6) Thermodynamics. Temperature. The population of particles at the atomic-molecular scale: The learners adopt the role of gas particles (p). They are arranged in rows according to a Gaussian distribution of the particles' kinetic energy (velocity) at a specific temperature. Each p-student has to move at its characteristic velocity around the room so that the whole p-students group moves in a particular interval of velocities that determine an average velocity that defines the temperature of the gas.

Keywords:

Happening, abstract chemical concepts, conceptual change, spatial skills.