Origami Modeling of Octahedral Molecular Geometric Structure

Abstract

The present research has been conducted to determine the impact of origami modeling of octahedral molecular geometric structure on the knowledge level of science students. 46 Freshman Science Students of the Department of Science Teaching, Faculty of Education in a state university of Turkey have participated. The research has been planned according to the one-group pretest-posttest experimental design in compliance with its main objective. During the performance phase of the research, the octahedral molecular geometry has been modeled with origami by students. Data have been collected through performing a knowledge test which consisted of six open-ended questions as the pre-test before the performance and as the post-test after the performance. The data collected have been subjected to frequency analysis. It has been found that the students' wrong and incomplete information about the questions asked in the pre-test such as the number of electron groups of the octahedral molecule geometry, the structure of the molecule geometry, the name of the molecular geometry, the VSEPR (Valence Shell Electron Pair Repulsion) notation, the ideal bond angle and the giving molecule examples for this geometric structure was fully corrected in the post-test. These results show that origami modeling is effective in teaching the octahedral molecular geometric structure.