Iowa State Professor, Students Develop Chemistry-Teaching Software

Black Issues in Higher Education, Jan 20, 2000

AMES, Iowa -- With the help of a little publicity, an Iowa State University professor and his students are finding that the software they developed to teach chemistry is gaining popular endorsement.

Dr. Kenneth Jolls, a professor of chemical engineering, says he has received more than 70 requests worldwide for the software, which was developed 18 months ago. An article on the software in the October edition of Science magazine, a weekly journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, could have prompted the interest, Jolls says.

The software, called Phase, offers computer-generated art for solving chemical thermodynamics problems and understanding chemistry ideas. It is available for free to schools and institutions for use on Silicon Graphics machines.

It was created using the Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations that were part of a grant Iowa State received several years ago, Jolls says. The software doesn't do anything new in terms of computer graphics, but it does allow a more smooth and powerful way of seeing and understanding some difficult chemistry problems.

"These types of drawings have been played with on pencil and paper for 100 years," Jolls says. "The trick is to get them in a computer graphics environment where you can move them around and get a sense of their three-dimensionality."