Codepad – The ClassHelper.org™ Blog

Teachers and parents searching for new tools for teaching chemistry should give Kalzium a look. Part of the KDE Education Project, Kalzium is easily installed on various distributions of Linux, such as Ubuntu. Students in a wide range of grade levels will find the application useful; it has features ranging from basic facts about each element to a molecular calculator built in. Here’s the default Kalzium start screen, showing the periodic table of the elements.

Default start screen for Kalzium, showing the periodic table.

Each elements’s electron configuration may be viewed in the dialog dedicated to element information:

Viewing chromium's electron configuration in Kalzium.

A wealth of more detailed information is available in the Data Overview section; everything from an element’s melting and boiling points to electronegativity level is available at a glance.

Detailed element information in Kalzium's data overview dialog.

There’s a lot more to Kalzium than the functionality we’ve covered here. We strongly encourage anyone running a distribution of Linux to give it a try at home or in the classroom.

If you’re in the mood for a little fun, there’s another application in the Ubuntu repositories that you’ll find enjoyable: Atomix. Although it’s not under active development anymore (no new features anytime in the near future), it’s a pretty complete clone of the 1990 Atari title. Windows users can install another clone, WAtomic. This puzzle game requires the player to assemble molecules, given individual atoms scattered on the field of play. Here’s the first level, where your objective is to assemble a water molecule:

Assemble a water molecule to pass the first level.

As always, have fun! We welcome suggestions from our readers regarding other free, open source applications that they find useful for teaching and learning chemistry.