Go Chemistry: A Card Game To Help Students Learn Chemical Formulas

For beginning chemistry students, the basic tasks of writing chemical formulas and naming covalent and ionic compounds often pose difficulties and are only sufficiently grasped after extensive practice with homework sets. An enjoyable card game that can replace or, at least, complement nomenclature homework sets is described. "Go Chemistry" is similar to the "Go Fish" card game in that students earn points by using cards to correctly form the formulas of covalent and ionic compounds and by subsequently providing the names of these compounds. By playing the game, students practice identifying an element or ion from its chemical symbol, categorizing elements as either metals or nonmetals, determining whether elements will combine to form ionic or covalent compounds, combining the cards in the correct ratio for electrical neutrality for ionic compounds or valency for covalent compounds, and applying the nomenclature rules. The difficulty of the game can be easily adjusted to match the course objectives and the knowledge level of the students.