a)

b)

Figure 1. Two screen captures of a science Jeopardy! game. (a) The Double Jeopardy! game board, from Organic Game #4: Final Exam Review, Chaps 1–11 of Jones’s text (3); (b) The displayed “answer board” for the 400-point entry of the “Starting Materials” category.

There are a number of reasons why one might use Jeopardy! in a classroom. The reason we find most compelling is that the Jeopardy! format challenges the students to use their chemical knowledge in a different way from what they normally experience, because they must pose the question once they see the answer. Integrating Jeopardy! into the course depends on the individual instructor and the course; our experience is that it is incorporated naturally and easily as a day-one review in lecture or a pre-exam review in recitation. Although we have not tried it yet, we are intrigued about the possibility of using a carefully constructed Jeopardy! game to teach new material. We have found that students create useful new games for a small number of extra credit points, an exercise that helps them learn and better understand the chemistry themselves. How Jeopardy! is conducted may be dictated by class size; we have found that A, B, C, D letter cards held up by each individual work well in a 250-seat lecture hall for a multiple choice Jeopardy! game, and that a rotating team spokesman works for three teams in a 100-student recitation.

Literature Cited

1. http://chemed.chem.pitt.edu/Jeopardy (accessed Jun 2003).
2. For other Jeopardy!-style games previously published in this Journal, see Keck, M. V. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 483; Deavor, J. P. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 430; and Scarpetti, D. J. Chem. Educ. 1991, 68, 1027.
3. Jones, M. Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed.; Norton: New York, 1997.