Tabletop RPG Classroom: In-Game Chemistry Lab for High School Students
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General structuring for teaching chemistry with tabletop role-playing games
First! If you’ve already read part 1 (elementary school chem lab) or part 2 (middle school chem lab) of this series, much of this next explanation will be similar to the general structuring section in that post, and you can go here to skip ahead to the high school chemistry experiment (the new part)!
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Before we get to the example, we’re going to cover some general tips for structuring your game around a lesson or educational goal. Much of this will be similar to any subject that you’re teaching (not just for chemistry lessons and not just for high school kids). This means that if you’re here looking for general TTRPG classroom info, much of this can be applicable to any class, after school group, or game!
I’m covering this all before the high school TTRPG example because it is important to understand the basics for how the example is structured and why we’re doing things the way we are (so that you can take this material and extrapolate it for your particular kids and lessons).
Setting your game’s educational goal(s)
When it comes to setting up intentionally educational TTRPGs, before you start coming up with plots and mechanics, and even educational content, you first need to figure out what your goals for your students are since this is going to be what we want to build everything else around.
You don’t want to be trying to shoehorn a concept into an existing game or story idea that doesn’t really fit… and then losing the focus on what you want to teach.
Pick one to two core goals that you hope to accomplish with the tabletop RPG that you’re introducing to your class.
What is the purpose of introducing this game?
For chemistry experiments with high school kids, these concepts could be something like “balance equations” or “perform a titration experiment” or “understand the different types of chemical bonds”. There’s a range here with topics being purely academic to topics that focus on general big picture concepts with science, so think about your situation and pick a couple that work for your group and that you think could be helped by working into a TTRPG.
Paying attention to your game’s focus
Next, once you have your goal to build from, you’re probably going to start thinking of the game system that you’ll use and the story that you’ll make to surround the topic(s) you chose.
As you do this, make sure to keep the focus on teaching your goal.
If you pick a complex game system that takes several weeks to learn, you could be diverting your students’ focus and time from the core goal (learning about chemistry) and instead putting it on learning about this particular game system… which is not your goal.
If you have a small group and everyone already knows D&D, then go ahead and use it! They don’t need to devote any additional cognitive load to learning a new game (they already have the context), and using a known system may actually be easier than switching to a new, rules-lite, system.
For some subjects (like in this interview with D&D teacher Kade Wells), systems like D&D can be great for teaching English and reading because they require critical reading skills to understand, and it provides necessary motivation, so that system meets the goals of the class.
However, if not everyone goes in knowing that system, choose a game system that lets students focus on learning the chemistry class goal that you set. This could mean just using a 1d6 system or drawing cards from a deck of standard playing cards for randomization, and that’s OK. It can also mean not needing a system at all and just applying the story to the lesson, like I do in the example below! If you’d like to see examples of a rules lite syste, check out my elementary chem class article. If you’d like to see an example of using D&D, check out my middle school chem class article. To give variety, the high school chem class example is going to have no rules (just narrative).
When you’re creating your adventure, watch this as well. Keep your lesson modular (you probably don’t have time to get into a ton of lore and still keep it within a typical class period), so run quick one-shots or have a few short sessions spread out over a few classes… then end there. It doesn’t need to be a full epic campaign to get your educational goals across, and you want students focusing more on the educational concepts anyway.
Include three points of contact with the subject material in your TTRPG
If you look at stories ranging from fairy tales to present day children’s tv shows, when a new concept is being taught, it’s often presented at least three times (think of how The Boy Who Cried Wolf repeated its theme or how Bluey reiterates topics throughout the episode).
This is because we need to interact with something more than once for it to sink in. When teaching, you should also reiterate some of the topics a few times to make sure they stick and students have had enough time to process and absorb the material.
When you look at the example below, watch for the three points of contact and how they drive the core goal home over and over so the concept of things changing when you mix them or observing how things are in their current state can be explored more than once.
Build your chemistry experiment examples into each other and the TTRPG
With those three points of contact, you’ll also want to make sure that they are both built into each other (so they’re related and connected) and that they’re part of the story and/or mechanics that you have included in your tabletop RPG.
Tying them tightly into the game creates the connection that you’re looking for between your players and the material, and it’s the whole point of doing this! So, make sure that your story and your science experiments match!
Now, this all can seem like a lot to watch out for, but it’s really just a few points:
- Determine your educational goal
- Keep your mechanics and story simple and focused on the goal
- Use your goal at least three times
- Connect your game ideas to the goal
To help show how to do this specifically for high school kids, here’s an example lesson that teaches about basic terms and equations that are used in stoichiometry (the chem topic that I tutored the most students in)!
Example TTRPG chemistry lesson for high school students (13-18)
Goals, context, and mechanics for your high school TTRPG chemistry lesson
Context: high school chemistry lab getting into stoichiometry lessons; the class did NOT connect with the first introduction lesson, and on two people in the class passed the mini-quiz given after that lesson.
Goal: (1) Understand stoichiometry terms and (2) be able to convert between moles, grams, and molecules
Mechanics: none! story only!
Experiments: Interpret notes from a magi-botonist to heal plants by distributing the correct moles of anti-blight serum (convert moles –> g), harvest and combine the correct quantities of each plant to make a potion (convert molecules –> g), distribute the correct amount of potion to the sick baby owlbears (calculate molecular mass and convert moles –> g).
Note: with older students, it can sometimes help to lean into the hokey elements of the game. Like… OH NO! THE BABY OWLBEARS ARE GOING TO DIE IF YOU DON’T DO SOMETHING! It’s OK to ham it up and make it fun versus trying to make it a serious story.
First point of contact: save the plants!
In this example, we’re going to provide a story to frame some of the stoichiometry terms and equations so there’s clear examples of what these equations can be used for AND to make it a bit more fun than just doing equations on a worksheet or having the teacher write on the board for the class.
In this story, the class is going to be told that they are part of a magical zoology team who has been called to the Northern Owlbear Preservation Effort’s HQ to investigate a mysterious illness that has four baby owlbears laid out sick and in need of care. They’ve determined that this illness is an old disease called Owlbear Pox, and it needs to be treated right away! However, Owlbear Pox has not shown up in centuries, so no one makes medicine for it anymore. Now you must brew it from scratch.
You go to the International House of Botany (IHOB) to gather plants, only to find that THEY have been hit by a plant blight (hm… maybe there’s a bigger plot going on here that could branch into another lesson). They’re creating anti-blight serum for the plants, but you need to make sure they prioritize the three ingredients for the Owlbear Pox medicine and administer the correct amount! These three are the Poppleberry Plant (P), the Vivid Vine (V), and the Corvid’s Crocus (C).
The lead botanist, Dr. Forte is busy synthesizing more serum and tasks you with administering it. They leave you with instructions, a scale that can measure mass, and a warning to NOT DISTURB THEM while they are working as ANY BREAK IN CONCENTRATION may result in EPIC DISASTER and YOU COULD GET A FACE FULL OF SERUM THAT MAY TURN YOU INTO A CABBAGE!
The instructions read as follows:
- M = molar mass = the mass of one mole of an or molecule
- m = molecular mass = the mass of one molecule of a particular element
- n = moles = 6.022 x 10^23 atoms or molecules
M for anti-blight serum = 20g/mole
- Poppleberry Plant – administer 2 moles of serum
- Vivid Vine – administer 6 moles of serum
- Corvid’s Crocus – administer 3.75 moles of serum
Because your equipment can only measure mass, you’ll need to convert from moles to mass (grams) in order to administer the correct amount!
How many grams of serum does each plant need?
If students need help, show them:
For X moles needed, if you know M (g/mole), then (X moles) * (M g/mole) = g because the moles will cancel out (moles/moles = 1).
So, for the Poppleberry Plant (P): (2 moles of serum) * (20 g of serum/mole of serum) = 40g of serum for the Poppleberry Plant (P).
Answers:
- P = 40g
- V = 120g
- C = 75g
Second point of contact: make the potion!
Now that you’ve administered the correct amounts to each plant, they start to bloom into life! After only a few minutes with the serum, they are ready to harvest, but you want to make sure that you don’t take TOO MUCH and accidentally kill the plants (you might need them later)!
You have the recipe in an old book titled “Filbert’s Guide to Rare and Specific Cures”, but… like Dr. Forte, Filbert seems to be a fan of using particular measurements. Everything is listed in molecules! Since you don’t have a magical molecular scanner, you’ll need to convert to grams to see how much of each plant to harvest.
Filbert’s Owlbear Pox Miracle Cure:
- 12.44 x 10^23 molecules of Poppleberry Plant (P)
- 50 x 10^23 molecules of Vivid Vine (V)
- 3 x 10^23 molecules of Corvid’s Crocus (C)
From notes that someone has scribbled in the margins, you see that:
- M(p) = 10g/mol
- M(v) = 23g/mol
- M(c) = 3.5g/mol
Calculate how many grams of each plant you need for the medicine.
If students need help, show them:
For X molecules needd, if you know M (g/mole) and if you know that 1 mole = 6.022 x 10^23, then (X molecules) * (1 mole/6.22*10^23 molecules) * (Y g/mole) = X grams needed. The molecules/molecules and the mole/mole will cancel out, leaving you with just grams.
So, for the Poppleberry Plant (P): (12.44 x 10^23 molecules of P) * (1 mole of P / 6.22 x 10^23 molecules of P) * (10 g of P / mole of P) = 20g of P needed for the medicine
Answers:
- P = 20g
- V = 184.9g
- C = 1.7g
Third point of contact: save the baby owlbears!
You have the correct quantities harvested, and now you must combine them! You stir your ingredients together, the colors blend, it gives off a strange odor (this is a byproduct, so your M for the medicine may be different than if you just combine all your M’s for your ingredients… for the teacher, this helps to seed the idea behind precipitates and other byproducts for future lessons without overloading students on more major concepts) and you now have the medicine that you need.
However, before you leave IHOB, you want to make sure that you have enough medicine so you don’t have to come ALL THE WAY BACK, but you still only have the scale that measures in grams… and now Filbert’s using moles.
In Filbert’s Guide, it says that one dose is 1.5 moles for a baby owlbear, and you know that there’s 4 baby owlbears.
Again, the margin scribbles give you a nice hint, showing that M(med) = 30g/mol.
Calculate how much medicine, in grams, you’ll need TO SAVE THE BABY OWLBEARS!
If students need help, remind them to look back at part one and use similar equations there. It’s similar to how they converted from moles to grams, but it uses different values.
Answer:
(1.5 moles of medicine) * (30 g of medicine/mole of medicine) = 45g of medicine needed per baby owlbear
4 baby owlbears need 45g of medicine each, so 4 * 45g = 180g of medicine are needed.
You measure the amount of medicine that you have, and you find that it’s a little low (there must have been some that evaporated off with that smell!), you make a second batch, taking just enough from each plant, and you are on your way! You get back to the sick baby owlbears, administer the medicine, and EVERYONE IS OK!
What’s shown here can be modified to fit your class and other types of experiments, and it’s meant to be a springboard for other ideas. I hope it helps to show a sample tabletop RPG lesson outline for either direct use in your classes (homeschooled or in a group schooled setting) or to spark some inspiration for other ideas, and let me know in the comments if you use this or have ideas of your own!
Stay tuned for future lessons as well! The next “Tabletop RPG Classroom” article set will a whole new subject (like history, music, math, or writing), and I’m excited to dive into a new subject soon!
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