[tiange]

Hi Everyone!

I am currently a grade 12 student at my local high school, and I head a chemistry club of sorts. The club preps for the Canadian chemistry olympiad, tutors people in the subject, and we also do occasional demos.

The problem with the demos is that our school board is really tight on chemistry activities, and so all my proposed activities go through a long and arduous process to get approved, and this results in a really non-active club.

Recently, I proposed to the club that we do some "interesting group activities", whereby we get the club members to play some fun group games that would hopefully teach some fundamental concepts about chemistry.

So that's where I got stuck. It sounds like a good idea, and many club members welcomed it, but I am unable to think up or find any of such activities. If anyone can help me out in that respect, I would deeply appreciate it!

So to summarize: I am looking for an activity for a group that is fun and interactive, while teaching some concepts about chemistry. Nothing overly complicated please.

Thanks for reading!
Tiange

[Vidya]

You can show different types of reactions by dance activities
like two students dancing together (one substance)and during the dance they are separated and now dancing alone.This shows a decomposition reaction
The reverse of this will be combination !!

[fledarmus]

You can show steric effects on Sn2 reactions by having people hold hands (or ribbons). The carbon atom wears five ribbons, three of them white (to be held by three "hydrogens"), one red attached to his front (for the "leaving group), and a green one hanging at his belt at his back. The nucleophile tries to dart between two hydrogens and grab the green ribbon, and when he does, the leaving group has to let go of the red one. Try it again, with each of the people holding white ribbons now representing methyl groups, and having three more white ribbons of their own attached to "hydrogens". How much harder is it for the nucleophile to get through the crowd?

This would be a better demonstration in zero-G where you could have all the "atoms" in three dimensions, but I think it will get the point across