JUN 4, 2025
Educator’s Month: How can high school students use computational chemistry for scientific inquiry? Insights from the development of the Comp-Chem Lab
The understanding of chemistry has been revolutionized in the last decade by the rise of computational chemistry (CC), which allows direct access to the energy of chemical structures. CC is a powerful example of the essential role that simulations now play in exploring scientific questions. Bringing CC into the chemistry classroom has great potential-not only to deepen students’ understanding of the energy involved in chemical reactions, but also to introduce them to modern tools used in scientific research.
However, the use of CC in high school still faces several technical and pedagogical challenges. To address these challenges, we have developed the Comp-Chem-Lab (CCL), a web-based learning environment that allows high school students to use CC for scientific inquiry in the classroom.
In this session, participants will have the opportunity to actively explore how CCL enables students to investigate bond dissociation and reaction energetics through guided, interactive activities.
Based on the results of an empirical study, we will show how high school students worked with CCL. Their problem-solving strategies evolved from initial trial-and-error approaches to strategic searches for energy minima, supported by adaptive feedback. Overall, the empirical findings highlight both the potential and the challenges of using CC tools to support conceptual understanding, scientific inquiry, and computational thinking.
We look forward to discussing with you how computational chemistry can be further integrated into secondary and undergraduate education.
Our Speaker
Benjamin Pölloth
Professor of Chemistry Education, Freie Universität Berlin
Prof. Dr. Benjamin Pölloth studied Chemistry and Mathematics at the University of Regensburg, Germany. After graduation, he worked for two years as a teacher in German academic high schools. Subsequently, he did research in physical-organic chemistry at the LMU Munich with Prof. Dr. Zipse, investigating the role of dispersion interactions on reaction rates in enantioselective catalysis. After receiving his Ph.D., he worked as a post-doc in chemistry education research with Prof. Schwarzer at the University of Tübingen. Since December 2024 he is Professor for Chemistry Education at the Freie Universität Berlin. His research investigates how a modern understanding and recent research in chemistry can be implemented in science education to foster conceptual understanding, e.g. of the core idea of energy, and scientific inquiry skills, e.g. through the use of simulations. To this end, he investigates learning processes empirically and develops learning opportunities such as experiments or online learning environments.
Date & Time 
Location 
09:30 – 10:00 
