How Gamification Can Facilitate Learning the Elements

¶ … Visited: "The Periodic Table of Element," Jefferson Lab at http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/. The following online activities are available at this Web site: Element Flash Cards, Element Hangman, Element Matching, Element Math, Element Crossword Puzzles, Element Concentration, Element Balancing and Element Word Scramble. In addition, paper-based (downloadable PDFs) are also available for Element Bingo and Element Word Search. Links to relevant resources concerning the periodic table are also provided. Description of three activities or demonstrations Activity No. 1: Element Hangman (http://education.jlab.org/elementhangman/prob241. html).

The clue for this activity was: "This element is used to give glasses and enamels a ruby-red color." The "hangman" was comprised of 10 yellow "atoms" (complete with plus and negative signs) that disappeared when an incorrect guess was made. The correct answer to the above question, "selenium," was guessed correctly with just one "atom" remaining. Activity No. 2: Crossword Puzzles (http://education.jlab.org/elementcrossword/index.html) Nine crossword puzzles are offered: (Puzzle 1 -- It's a gas, Puzzle 2 - Easy Symbols.

Puzzle 3 - Strange Symbols, Puzzle 4 - Known to the Ancients, Puzzle 5 - The Alkali Metals, Puzzle 6 - The Alkaline Earth Metals, Puzzle 7 - The Chalcogen Group, Puzzle 8 - The Halogen Group, and Puzzle 9 - The Noble Gases). The 11-word crossword puzzle, Known to the Ancients, was completed (with effort). In this activity, correct letters are shown as green while incorrect letters are shown as red as clues for the visitor. Activity No.

3: Element Word Scramble (http://education.jlab.org/elementwordscramble / index.html) In this activity, visitors are offered a choice of 5, 10 or 15 words and whether to receive clues or not. Each of five words was successfully unscrambled, but "thulium" required several guesses, "phosphorus" was guessed on the first try, "bohrium" was guess after multiple (frustrating) tries, "cobalt" was guessed on the first try, and identifying "hassium" correctly required several tries. Review of this site and supporting rationale This was a fun and engaging Web site.

Besides having a searchable and downloadable copy of the periodic table on the main page, a number of activities, quizzes and games are also available in this Web site. Each of the activities was followed by a prompt and link ("Tell me more about & #8230;") that alternatively encouraged visitors to learn more about the element just mentioned or to go on to the next question in the activity. In addition, downloadable copies of PDF files for most of the.