Not Playing with a Full Deck: Ideas For Electron-Counting Chemical Card Games

Rhiannon Davids*, Bezawit Legesse*, and Dean J. Campbell*

*Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois

Chemistry education abounds with tools and models that are used to help in our understanding of chemical properties and molecular structures. These tools range from simple to sophisticated and are available in both virtual and more concrete formats.^1,2 Among these many educational tools are those that have formats like decks of cards. Many of these cards differ from ordinary playing cards.^3,4 The ideas for the card games described here are based on ordinary, unmodified playing cards. Although not all of the cards in a typical deck are used in these games, the number values on many of the cards are the same as the number of valence electrons for many elements. This enables the cards to be used in chemistry education activities involving sums of valence electrons. For example, a common approach to drawing Lewis electron dot structures is to first total up the valence electrons for each of the constituent atoms and then correct that total for the charge on the chemical specie.⁵ The playing cards can be used to practice this skill. Players are given a deck of cards representing atoms with their associated valence electrons. To win these games, players must produce groupings of cards that represent valid chemical species with the proper numbers of valence electrons. The main objective of the games described below is to provide practice and build proficiency in writing Lewis structures of chemical species.

 

Correlating Cards to Periodic Table Groups

Take a normal deck of cards and set aside the J, 10, and 9 - you will not use them. Shuffle the remaining cards. The rest of the cards represent neutral atoms and their valence electrons, or charges:

A - Group I each with one valence electron (like H, Na)

2 - Group 2 each with two valence electrons (like Be, Ca)

3 - Group 3 each with three valence electrons (like B, Al)

4 - Group 4 each with four valence electrons (like C, Si)

5 - Group 5 each with five valence electrons (like N, P)

6 - Group 6 each with six valence electrons (like O, S)

7 - Group 7 each with seven valence electrons (like F, Cl)

8 - Group 8 each with eight valence electrons (like Ne, Ar)

Q - negative charge (looks vaguely like a minus sign with a circle around it)

K - positive charge (looks vaguely like a plus sign, K sounds like "c" in cation)

Figure 1 gives examples of card groupings and compounds they could represent.

Figure 1. Examples of card groupings and chemical species they could represent.

 

A more extensive listing of chemical species that could be represented by these card combinations is provided as Supporting Information. 

 

Solo Play

Shuffle the cards and pull ten cards. Try to make one or more polyatomic compounds or ions from groups of cards. For example, in one round a person pulled A, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8, Q, and a couple other cards.  

The person grouped:

5 and 5 for dinitrogen (N2)

4, A, 6, 6, Q for the formate ion (CHO₂^-)

8 for a noble gas atom (like Ne)

and the person could not do anything with the other two cards. 

Reshuffling and continuing to draw:

Draw 2 : 5 6 A A K 8 Q 4 4 8

8=Ne, 8=Ne, 456Q=SCN^-, AA=H₂, leftover 4K

Draw 3: 4 K Q A 5 A K 3 7 5

AA57=NH₂Cl, 45Q=CN^-, leftover 3KK 

Draw 4: 7 6 3 5 8 2 A Q 7 6 

8=Ne, A577=NHCl₂, 66Q=O^2-, leftover 23 

(an alternative would have been 667Q=ClO₂^-)

Draw 5: A 5 Q 5 8 7 8 3 A K 

8=Ne, 8=Ne, A7=HCl, AK=H⁺, 35=BN, leftover 5Q 

At this time, a  player would draw the Lewis structures for each compound or ion, and earn a point for each card they used. Maybe an extra point could be given to the students if they balanced the cations and the anions to make a neutral salt.

An alternative is to also remove the 2, 3, and 8 cards. Draws from these decks yielded:

Draw 1 : 7 4 6 7 K 6 5 A Q 7 

A4777=CHCl₃, 556Q=NO₂^-, leftover K

(an alternative would have been A5777=NHCl₃⁺)

Draw 2 : Q Q K K 7 6 5 4 7 Q 

4677=Cl₂CO, 5QQQ=N^3-, leftover KK

Draw 3 : 5 A 6 7 5 K 6 7 5 K  

AK=H⁺, 55=N₂, 66=O₂, 77=Cl₂, leftover 5K

Draw 4 : 7 7 Q 4 6 K K 4 6 Q  

6QQ=O^2-, 4477=C₂Cl₂, leftover 6KK

AK=H⁺, 55=N₂, 66=O₂, 77=Cl₂, leftover 5K

Draw 5 : 6 5 4 K K 4 6 Q 6 A  

A4666Q=HCO₃^-, leftover 45KK

Given how often that K is a leftover, it might be desirable to put only one K in the playing deck.  

Group Play

One option for group play would be for each person in the group to have a deck and go maybe ten rounds and see who gets the most points over those rounds. The decks could be reshuffled after every round

An alternative two-player game based on the card game Speed. Only 32 cards will be used, removing 3, 8, 9, 10, and J (and Jokers). For a round of the game, four cards are placed face-down in the center of the area of play, with four more cards set to the side of the center. The second set of four is to be played on top of the center of play if there are no more available plays in the game to allow the game to continue. Then the remaining cards are dealt face down to each player to create their own “deck”. Each player keeps a hand of five cards, drawing from their “deck” when playing cards to keep a constant hand size. 

To start the game, both players flip over the four cards placed in the center of the area of play. Then players play the cards in their hand as quickly as possible with those in the center by placing the matching cards on top of the center cards. When a compound or ion is made, the played cards are put aside near the player, and the player places a card from their deck into the center (or hand if there are no more cards in their deck). The first person to empty their hand with all of their chemical compounds correctly made wins the game. If there are no available plays even after the second set of four cards is played, the player with the least amount of cards in their hand wins.

Simple Chemical Reactions

Groups of cards could also be rearranged to represent the rearrangement of atoms in chemical reactions. Figure 2 shows a simple rearrangement of cards to represent the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen gasses to produce water.

 

Figure 2. Rearrangement of cards to represent the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen gasses to produce water.

 

Bonds-Only Variation

Not everyone teaches drawing Lewis structures by total valence electron count early on in the process. Some place an earlier emphasis on the number of covalent bonds.⁶ A possible variation of the card game might only focus on the number of covalent bonds that elements typically form. Use only the A, 2, 3, and 4 cards from the deck for this game. The cards represent the following atoms and their typical number of covalent bonds in neutral compounds:

A - H, usually forms one covalent bond

2 - O, usually forms two covalent bonds

3 - N, usually forms three covalent bonds

4 - C, usually forms four covalent bonds

For example, 10 cards drawn from this pile of 16 yielded: 2 A A 4 4 4 2 3 4 A 

A34=HCN, 224=CO₂, AA44=H₂C₂

To some extent, the cards resemble “atoms” in a simple molecular model kit, where hydrogen has one bond site, oxygen has two bond sites, nitrogen has three bond sites, and carbon has four bond sites. The cards can even be placed on flat surfaces in arrangements that resemble two-dimensional representations of the molecules. Modifications to this game might enable it to be used for species like CO, odd-electron species, and ionic compounds. 

 

Conclusions

Both the solo and group play modes for the electron-counting card game are intended to enhance student proficiency in drawing simple Lewis structures. At both the high school or undergraduate levels, these games may work as an additional opportunity for students to practice their skills in a fun and engaging way. For high school students, this may be appropriate for Honors or AP classes for Next Generation Science standards HS-PS1-1: Use the periodic table as a model to predict the relative properties of elements based on the patterns of electrons in the outermost energy level of atoms and HS-PS1-2: Construct and revise an explanation for the outcome of a simple chemical reaction based on the outermost electron states of atoms, trends in the periodic table, and knowledge of the patterns of chemical properties.⁷  As noted above, a more extensive listing of chemical species that could be represented by these card combinations is provided as Supporting Information.  This listing might especially be useful for students just learning to draw Lewis structures. 

 

Acknowledgements This work was supported by Bradley University and the Mund-Lagowski Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry with additional support from the Illinois Heartland Section of the American Chemical Society. The material contained in this document is based upon work supported by a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant or cooperative agreement. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of NASA. This work was supported through a NASA grant awarded to the Illinois/NASA Space Grant Consortium. 

 

References

1. Silva, V. S.; Nunes, E. P.; Moura, L. A.; Gomes de Sá, C. L. S.; Augusto Filha, V. L. S.; Albuquerque, A. R. Organic Connections: A Chemical Jigsaw Puzzle for Learning Structural Formulas. J. Chem. Educ., 2022, 99, 3797–3804.
2. Paye, C. L.; Dunnagan, C. L.; Tredwell, D. A.; Gallardo-Williams, M. T. Connecting the Dots: Lewis Structure Builder Web App as a Review Tool for Organic Chemistry. J. Chem. Educ., 2021, 98, 2704–2708.
3. Manning, T. “Open Source Chem Card Game.” ChemEd Exchange. https://www.chemedx.org/blog/open-source-chem-card-game (accessed July, 2023).
4. Husting, C. “Nomenclature and Chemistry Poker.” ChemEd Exchange. https://www.chemedx.org/blog/nomenclature-and-chemistry-poker (accessed July, 2023).
5. Flowers, P.; Theopold, K.; Langley, R.; Robinson, W. OpenStax, Chemistry 2e. https://openstax.org/details/books/chemistry-2e (accessed July, 2023).
6. Curnow, O. J.; Pearson, J. K. Quantitative Assessment on the Effectiveness of a Formal Charge Method for Constructing Lewis (Electron Dot) Structures. J. Chem. Educ., 2023, Online Publication Date: July 13, 2023. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00189 (accessed July, 2023).
7. Next Generation Science Standards. HS-PS1 Matter and its Interactions. https://www.nextgenscience.org/dci-arrangement/hs-ps1-matter-and-its-int... (accessed July, 2023).