SongBird

Need help practicing resonance structures? Songbird is here to help!

Songbird is a two player call and response resonance structure game where players alternate between playing as the cantor and the songbird. The cantor draws a card from the deck containing a molecule in a particular resonance form. The cantor draws another resonance form of the molecule and gives the drawing to the songbird. The songbird is not allowed to see the original card, but must deduce and draw the original structure on the card. The songbird may ask for two bits of information to help:

• How many arrows the cantor used to draw the structure?
• Which resonance form is more stable, the given form, or the one the cantor drew?

If the songbird correctly draws the structure on the card, the songbird wins the round and holds on to the card. If the songbird gives the incorrect structure, the Cantor wins the round and holds on to the card. After each round, the songbird and cantor switch roles.

All Big Magnet Games aim to build fluency in chemistry-related vocabularies and concepts. Songbird aims to cultivate fluency in students as it pertains to drawing resonance forms. Each card in the deck contains a unique resonance form and many of them have multiple other resonance forms for a student to choose from to draw. As students practice this game with each other, our hope is that they will become more fluid in drawing resonance forms, using curved arrow formalism, identifying other resonance forms and assessing major and minor contributors.