“The Price is Right” for Your Classroom

Abstract

An initial goal of chemistry laboratory courses is almost always the “proper” use of laboratory resources including glassware and instruments. The proper use of glassware encompasses many topics, such as laboratory safety, technical proficiency, and recognition of function. However, as many chemical educators can attest, at both the K−12 and university-level students often have a poor understanding of what makes a particular piece of glassware appropriate for a given task. In particular, student ignorance of the role and use of volumetric glassware may be quite pronounced. Compounding this concern is the fact that exercises or demonstrations designed to introduce this topic are frequently dry, dull, and uninspired. We seek to reverse these circumstances by sharing a popular interactive demonstration based on the television show The Price is Right that has been successfully implemented in diverse educational settings including analytical and general chemistry courses at the undergraduate level, high school chemistry and introductory physical science courses, and in middle schools.

Using Pop-Culture to Engage Students in the Classroom

“…54−58 The omnipresent Marvel franchises often invoke various areas of chemistry and chemical engineering such as nanotechnology in the suits of Iron Man, 40 properties of the fictional metal vibranium in Black Panther, 59 the quantum realm in Ant-Man, 60 or material sciences in Spider-Man. 61 Television is also a good way to illustrate chemistry, 62 and famous shows used for this purpose include The Price is Right, 63 The Big Bang Theory, 64 CSI, 65 The Simpsons, 66 Bones, 67 ER, and House. 68 Trending games 69−89 are also an interesting pathway to involve students in general chemistry courses.…”

“…Beyond novels and comics, movies are currently one of the biggest providers of pop-culture. , The list of movies used to illustrate chemistry is impressive including for example Apollo 13 , October Sky , Star Trek , and many others. − The omnipresent Marvel franchises often invoke various areas of chemistry and chemical engineering such as nanotechnology in the suits of Iron Man , properties of the fictional metal vibranium in Black Panther , the quantum realm in Ant-Man , or material sciences in Spider-Man . Television is also a good way to illustrate chemistry, and famous shows used for this purpose include The Price is Right , The Big Bang Theory , CSI , The Simpsons , Bones , ER , and House . Trending games − are also an interesting pathway to involve students in general chemistry courses. − Educators have included pop-culture elements to solve educational escape games, for example, to unveil the name of a super hero (Clark Kent from Superman ) or famous gimmicks of a character , such as “Bazinga” from the TV series The Big Bang Theory .…”

“…and famous shows used for this purpose include The Price is Right 63 , The Big Bang Theory 64 , CSI , The Simpsons 66 , Bones 67 , ER and House 68 . Trending games are also an interesting pathway to involve students in general chemistry courses [90][91][92][93][94][95][96][97] .…”

Fastest Fingers: A Molecule-Building Game for Teaching Organic Chemistry

“…Games have long been heralded as an effective means to engage students and promote meaningful discussion of chemical concepts in the classroom . Educational games come in a variety of formats; recent publications in this Journal have outlined board games, − card games, − and game shows, , among others. Myers’s Molecular Model Game makes use of modeling kits as teams of students race to build molecules with the correct VSEPR shape .…”