I am very excited to find a great free app goREACT. It is designed by the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. It lets kids explore the chemical reactions of different elements on mobile devices – safe and fun! It is not only a good learning app for middle and high school students, with the visual and interactive features, it is also a fun exploratory app for younger kids, even kids in kindergarten or preschool, as long as parents are with them.
When kids open the app, they will see the periodic table. All they have to do is to drag some elements into the reaction area. If there is a reaction, they will see what the product will be with a picture or video explaining the reaction and the new product. If kids just want to learn about some elements, simple tab on one from the periodic table, a window on the top left corner will show some facts of the element and how it is used in our life.
The best part of the app is the Featured Reactions. This is the part young children will enjoy a lot. For kids not ready to read by themselves yet, they will enjoy the reactions more if someone can read to them. But the reactions are fun to enjoy even if they can’t read.
There are 7 categories under Featured Reaction: Personal, Around the House, Vroom, Mother Nature, Get Technical, Isn’t that Attractive, Connect the Dots. I only tried some, and all are fun and easy for kids to relate.
One thing we created is NaOH, following the app suggestion. It first told us to add Na, and highlighted Na on the periodic table – nice feature makes it easy for kids to find the element. After my son dragged Na to the reaction area, the hint suggested him add Oxygen, with O highlighted on the screen. After he did that, the app suggested adding Hydrogen (H). Once the H is in with Na and O, we saw a picture of soaps with a note “Sodium Hydroxide is Iye, which is used to make soap”.
There are over 300 virtual chemical reactions built in the app. They make chemistry fun and fascinating.
