Fun with chemicals

Vidushi Dubey / TNN / Oct 22, 2005, 03:40 IST

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A doll can now explain what changes will take place in the colour of the indicator if dipped in an alkaline.

LUCKNOW: Remember the night before the chemistry exams when you moved around like a zombie trying to mug up formulas and elements on that Periodic Table. Does it still makes you break out into a cold sweat? However, now learning chemistry has been made fun with models and toys.
A doll can now explain what changes will take place in the colour of the indicator if dipped in an alkaline or acidic solution.
Explaining the new methodology, professor at Wilson College of Mumbai, Muzzafar Tandel said, "We covered the cheeks of a doll with phenolphthalien, a kind of indicator, then gave the students a cotton dipped in ammonia, an alkaline solution.
When the children rub the solution on the cheeks of the doll, they find that the colour of its cheeks change to pink, while when it is rubbed with an acidic solution there is no such change. The blushing doll has made it simple for the students to understand the experiment.

The Indian Association of Chemistry Teachers is credited with introducing these innovative teaching methods, which aim to attract the students to this subject, which is gradually losing its charm among them.
Further explaining the innovative techniques, Tandel stated, "To explain the mechanism of a volcano, we made a mountain like structure and burnt ammonium dichromate in it. The ammonium dichromate erupts all of a sudden when it is ignited making it look like a volcano.

This helps the students understand the mechanism of a volcano and how the lava flows out of it. Not only experiments, but the most dreaded task of understanding equations has also been simplified under the new innovative technique.
Giving an example, head, department of chemistry, Wilson College, Mumbai, DV Prabhu, said a common equation of inversion of sugar is a problem to understand for all, where sucrose and water in the presence of a catalyst, hydrochloric acid produces glucose and fructose.
Molecular formula of both glucose and fructose is the same but properties are different. This was shown to the students by letting them pass a beam of light through glucose and fructose. Glucose deviated the light on the right hand side while fructose on did the same on the left.
This is not all, innovations have been introduced in the method of performing the experiments. To reduce time, pollution, through burners and solvent, the experiments are now being performed in a microwave and water is being used in place of the solvent.
Experiments are also now being performed on a micro scale and in room temperature as it reduces pollution due to lesser emission of toxins. Not only that, size of apparatus such as test tubes have also been reduced so that lesser chemicals are used and this new eco friendly chemistry is also aptly termed 'green chemistry'.

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