Tabletop chemistry
Board game enthusiasts Dr Sam Illingworth and Dr Paul Wade, both from Manchester Metropolitan University, received funding from the Royal Society of Chemistry Outreach Fund to run a project to engage new audiences in chemistry-based board games.
By Dr Sam Illingworth and Dr Paul Wade
Tabletop Chemistry is a project whose main aim was to develop resources that enable library staff to use tabletop games to engage their communities with chemistry during International Games Week (4–10 November 2018) and beyond.
Funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Outreach Fund, this project was led by the Games Research Network at Manchester Metropolitan University, alongside colleagues from the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the University of Southampton, and ErrantScience.
We wanted to use tabletop games to engage new audiences with chemistry because tabletop games create a shared space in which topics can be discussed and debated. Similarly, we wanted to deliver these activities at libraries and in conjunction with library staff because they represent a great resource for tapping into sometimes hard-to-reach audiences, especially in some of the rural locations in the North West and South West of England that were included as part of this project. By working directly with libraries and their staff, we have been able to utilise their community experience and ensure that Tabletop Chemistry effectively catered for the needs and experiences of each of the participants.
This project effectively had two parts: workshops for library staff, where we provided training in using tabletop games to develop dialogue around chemistry; and a series of public events in the libraries, run by the library staff, and which took place during International Games Week.
The training sessions took place in October, and were delivered by the Games Research Network, plus our colleagues Darren Edwards (UK coordinator for International Games Week) and Victoria Hunter (vice-chair for CILIP’s Public & Mobile Libraries Group). During these sessions we introduced three games Valence Plus, Chemistry Fluxx, and Compounded, all of which trade on the correlation between the properties of compounds (made up of specific elements, and created by chemical reactions) and the familiar game mechanics of set building and hand management. While playing these games we created learning materials that both facilitated the playing of these games, and highlighted the key aspects of chemistry that we wanted to communicate.
One of the key things we learnt from these training workshops was that it made sense to have a focussed approach to the chemistry that we wanted to discuss, and as a result of this we made minor modifications to the games so that after playing them the participants would come away with a clear understanding of elements and compounds. While these might seem like fairly unambitious learning outcomes to any seasoned chemists that are reading this, our project acknowledged the wide-range of scientific literacy among the communities we reached and offered, we hope, a way of beginning discussions about chemistry that could continue beyond the gaming sessions themselves. Another key aspect of developing these materials was that the information that we provided needed to be correct and accurate. In order to do this, we ensured that all of our learning materials were peer-reviewed by an expert in the respective field, in this instance by Dr Matthew Partridge, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton.
Approximately 300 members of the general public took part during the public events that we ran over International Games Week, using our learning materials to play games, learn about the elements and compounds, and engage in a dialogue around how chemistry is prevalent and relevant in their daily lives. Feedback from the library staff that were running these sessions has been very positive, with one them noting that:
Everybody that I spoke to seemed to have a really great time, most people stayed for a few hours and played a few different games and some some stayed for the whole day which was really great to have the whole space packed out with people playing games on 10 different tables at the same time.
And another commenting that:
As a result of our successful events I hope to be able to set up a circulating games collection and a family gaming event, focussing on games with educational content.
You can download the learning materials for Valence Plus and Chemistry Fluxx here, and if you use them in your outreach, teaching, or gaming groups then we would love to know what you thought of them.
Tell us your story
If you've been involved in an event or activity, or just have an interesting story to tell, we want to hear from you! Please get in touch with us by email.
Press office
- Tel:
- +44 (0) 20 7440 3351
- Email:
- Send us an email