Educational Games - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry

 

Plastics

For thousands of years people have been using silk, wool, cotton, wood and leather. In the last century or so, we have added plastics to this list. Key to developing the plastics we now use were the discoveries made by the Nobel Prize awarded scientists Ziegler and Natta in the 1950s. There are two major groups of plastics - some melt when heated and others don't. Find out why!

• The Heating Plastics Game

Chirality - Chemistry 2001

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 concerns work with chiral molecules. These chiral molecules can be used to control or speed up different chemical reactions. In this game you can learn the basic principles of chirality.

• The Chirality Game

Conductive Polymers

We have been taught that plastics, unlike metals, do not conduct electricity. Plastic is used as insulation around the copper wires in ordinary electrical cables. Yet, the 2000 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry: Alan Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, were rewarded for their revolutionary discovery that plastic can, after certain modifications, be made electrically conductive.

• The Conductive Valley Game

The PCR Method - a DNA Copying Mechine

PCR is a method by which a few fragments of DNA can be duplicated into millions in a couple of hours. This makes PCR a very useful method in forensic science, as it means that very small amounts of DNA could be enough to identify a person. PCR was invented by Kary Mullis, one of two Nobel Laureates in Chemistry in 1993. If you play the game below, you will be able to learn more about PCR!

• The Eye of The Donkey Game