Google Colab and Virtual Simulations: Practical e-Learning Tools to Support the Teaching of Thermodynamics and to Introduce Coding to Students

Abstract

Various studies have reported the versatility and great scope of programming tools in all areas of knowledge. Coding is generally of paramount importance to chemistry students regardless of whether they intend to work with theoretical chemistry. Google Colab notebooks can introduce students to programming concepts and could be a convenient tool to assist in the chemistry teaching process. In this article, we implemented Google Colab notebooks to aid in the teaching of thermodynamics in a physical chemistry class. We presented six notebooks, covering introductory concepts of both coding and thermodynamics as a set of learning objects that can be useful in a virtual learning environment. In addition, in some of the notebooks, we included a step-by-step guide on how to run virtual lab simulations. The Colab notebooks were created for students without previous experience in programming. All of the Colab notebooks contain exercises of the activities and the solutions of the proposed exercises. Furthermore, all of the Colab notebooks can be modified and downloaded from the Github repository. Finally, we used the Python programming language and Colab because they are free and widely used by the academic community.

Empowering undergraduates through machine learning

“…There are recent successful experiences of teaching AI to non-programmers in higher education that demystify the challenge; see for instance Vallejo et al (2022) for chemistry and Kuroki (2021) for microeconomics. With the emerging opportunities of high-performance technologies, policymakers and universities seeking to educate the workers of tomorrow should take into consideration the trade-off between technology-specific or hard skills and more general and soft skills (Deming and Noray, 2020).…”

Analisis Komparasi Cycles X Render Dan Cycles Render Menggunakan Google Colab

“…Menurut Carniero, (2018) dalam (Vallejo et al, 2022) Google Colab, terkadang dikenal sebagai Google Colaboratory, adalah layanan pembelajaran mesin gratis yang ditawarkan oleh Google. Platform ini memungkinkan pengguna untuk menelusuri dan menjalankan kode Python, mengunggah dan menyimpan kode bersama data, dan memungkinkan kolaborasi waktu nyata dengan pengguna lain.…”

OSSCAR, an open platform for collaborative development of computational tools for education in science

“…Other open-source platforms offer visual tools for education in chemistry in the form of interactive simulations [5]. Use of e-tools based on Google Colab was recently explored [6] to support the teaching of thermodynamics and provide some introduction to coding in chemistry classes taught in Columbia. Further impetus to develop on-line teaching tools was added by the recent pandemic crisis [7][8][9], with several interesting studies on their effectiveness [10][11][12].…”