Molecules - View 3D Molecules On Your iPad (Free)

Many of the molecules come with a lot of information about their structure

Molecules App: Teaching Exactly What the Name Suggests

This app is a simple, straightforward and interesting way to teach molecular sciences. The app provides 3D images of molecules that you can zoom into, move around, and explore in different ways. For each molecule, the app provides information on its structure, the number of atoms, and some other statistics that vary depending on the information provided by the image source.

The information about the image source (i.e. link, internet location etc.) is also provided. It is possible to download additional molecule images to the app to expand the collection of viewable molecules. This is done by using the app's search function to find specific molecules in the app's sources. The app also contains a color key so that users can identify the different elements that make up each molecule.


You can download additional molecules to the app

A Great Way to Learn About Molecules?

The Molecules app has a lot of potential to provide a useful and interactive teaching aid for those looking for alternatives or supplements to textbooks in the classroom. It allows users to zoom in on molecules, thereby gaining a much more detailed understanding of their construction.

However, the amount of content that comes with the app is limited, and not all of the molecules have the full set of information explaining their composition, so they are just 3D images with a link to the source from which the image was drawn. The search function works well and allows the user to find further molecules, but downloading these molecules to the app is complicated and sometimes a search just generates a list of webpages that are not part of the app and do not have 3D images of molecules. Despite the fantastic quality of the images that do come with the app, and the amount of information provided for some of them, these features do not apply to all of the molecules.

The Molecules app could be a great way to engage students in molecular science, and for them to study with their mobile device. The basis for a fantastic educational experience is there: high quality 3D images, zoom and movement functions, and the opportunity to expand content by downloading new information. However, the app feels somewhat as if it is still in construction and needs more time to fulfill its potential. The discrepancies in the amount of information provided for each molecule make it unreliable, and the difficulties of finding molecules (and not webpages) to add to the app make it rather complicated to obtain more content. This is a well-designed basis for a great future science education app.