Beer Chemistry Quiz on ChemTiles

During the Chemical Information Retrieval course I taught in the Fall of 2009, Alex Bilinski did a project on the chemistry of beer. He created a set of images with information that is either true or false in any context.

I just added these images of beer chemistry to the ChemTiles game, which I am actively using in my current Organic Chemistry I (CHEM241) course. Andrew Lang has made it very easy to add content to the game by simply uploading to a Flickr group. The category is determined by the Flickr tag.

I won't be testing my organic students on beer but they might find it fun to play that category. Alex wrote a fascinating report "Beer Flavor Compounds and Detection Methods" that can be used as a study guide for the quiz.

My students are currently competing on the topics of Lewis structures, hybridization, Newman projections and nomenclature. They simply need to sign in by entering "contest1" for the group name. The student in my class with the highest score for the contest1 group at the end of class (10:50 AM) on April 9, 2010 will win an organic chemistry textbook. As I have done in previous classes I'll run a few of these contests over the term with increasing amounts of course content.

It turns out that the ChemTiles game is very convenient to play on a Droid phone (and presumably on an iPhone although I have not checked that yet). For many students this might be a preferred way to review material before tests when on the move. I'll find out at the end of the term.