Applying Hand-Held 3D Printing Technology to the Teaching of VSEPR Theory

作者：Dean Natalie L; Ewan Corrina; McIndoe J Scott

来源：Journal of Chemical Education, 2016, 93(9): 1660-1662.

DOI：10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00186

• First-Year Undergraduate/General
• High School/Introductory Chemistry
• Collaborative/Cooperative Learning
• Hands-On Learning/Manipulatives
• VSEPR Theory

The use of hand-held 3D printing technology provides a unique and engaging, approach to learning VSEPR theory by enabling students to draw three-dimensional depictions of different molecular geometries, giving them an appreciation of the shapes of the building blocks of complex molecular structures. Students are provided with 3D printing pens and two-dimensional templates which allows them to construct three-dimensional ABS models of the basic VSEPR shapes. We found that the learning curve associated with manipulating the pen accurately and the time required to draw a structure is sufficiently high that this exercise would need to be limited in a laboratory setting to students each being tasked with drawing a different molecule; however, in the correct setting, hand-held 3D printing pens are a potentially powerful tool for the teaching of VSEPR theory.