While laboratory components of undergraduate analytical chemistry courses inherently require active participation on the part of the students, it can be difficult to maintain that level of engagement when students return to the classroom where conceptual content is delivered in a traditional lecture format. Role-playing boardgames offer effective alternatives to traditional lectures by allowing the students to immerse themselves directly into said content. Two such games have been developed to introduce chromatography to undergraduate students in a 400-level instrumental analysis course. Themed on a family entertainment center and a city nightlife corridor for GC and LC, respectively, these games allow students to explore and experience important concepts associated with chromatographic separations and rate theory, such as solute migration, band broadening, retention factors, temperature programs, and solvent polarity index, in a way that is intuitive and familiar. Players are assigned character roles with specific abilities and attributes, which define movement on the board according to the outcome of rolled dice. Designed in the print-and-play format, these games are easily reproduced, distributed, and scaled up or down according to class size. This session will outline the mechanics of the chromatography games, the design process, their incorporation into the curriculum, and the feedback from past players.

Rolling the dice on chromatography role-playing board games

251st National Meeting (2016)

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