Developed by Brian Reid and Nancy Lowmaster (breid@alleg.edu), Chemistry Department, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA 16335.
Discipline: Chemistry
Students in introductory chemistry lab run Hess before an experiment that involves measuring the energy produced in several chemical reactions and combining the results (using Hess's Law) to find the heat of formation of magnesium oxide. Students use the Hess program to "test" various possible reactions between available reagents. The program responds to each test with a description of the experimental result and whether it is a useful reaction for this experiment. When students have determined the proper course of action, they are rewarded with experimental details and safety information which they use to perform the experiment.
Hess is used in the introductory chemistry laboratory courses at Allegheny College.
This application was developed under NeXTstep release 2.0.
In the Hess.app folder are the files experiment.rtf and safety.rtf that provide the experimental and safety information for the laboratory. These files can be easily modified to suit an instructor's needs.
