Databases of resources and information to use in chemistry lessons
Tony Tooth looks at some websites that may be of interest to chemistry teachers
Crawling the web of chemistry
The ChemSpider site hosts 'a database of chemical structures and predicted properties as well as providing access to a series of property prediction algorithms'. This chemistry search engine aims to aggregate and index chemical structures and their associated information into a single searchable repository, which is made freely available to everybody. The site also provides a community for chemists to share data and ideas on chemical structures and reactions. The 'Predictions' link allows either trivial or systematic names to be entered and calls up diagrams of structures as well as accessing a variety of properties such as boiling points and enthalpies of vaporisation. The 'Search' link works similarly but provides data relating to structure and physical properties as well as links to external sources of information about the substance. This site will be useful to teachers looking for information for extension work and/or question-setting ideas.
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