Polychem

What Polychem is

Polychem is a desktop multimedia chemistry tutorial and simulation program for teachers and students, with an emphasis on applied chemistry. It targets senior high school and college chemistry. Its maker says the material spans more than a full year's course, including high school curriculum content and more. The standalone program brings together notes, interactive and exam questions, equipment and chemical-process simulations, organic chemistry activities, games, demonstrations, and videos.

Teachers can build tests from question types, consult model answers, and print tests with their answers. They can edit notes and examination questions, add questions through a multiple-choice template, and record or direct-mail results. If the program has write privileges to disk, marks for most activities can be saved with names, dates, and times. The maker offers a free copy to teachers, students, and organizations for individual, class, or demonstration use. That copy needs an internet connection to initialize each time it is used, but not for continued use. The download is more than 280 MB zipped and about 500 MB unzipped. A site licence costs $295, paid once. Polychem is offered for macOS and Windows, though the maker's download page describes operation on PC and Mac only up to Mac OS 10.6.

Who it suits

Polychem is suited to senior high school and college chemistry teachers and students, especially those working with applied chemistry. Teachers who want to create tests, adapt notes and questions, and record student marks may also find its classroom tools useful.

Limits

The free copy requires an internet connection to initialize each time, although continued use does not require a connection. The download page describes operation on PC and Mac up to Mac OS 10.6, and the updates page warns that Macs running OS X 10.7 cannot run it as described there.

Getting started

1. Visit the Polychem website.
2. Choose a free copy for individual, class, or demonstration use, or review the $295, paid once site licence.
3. Download the desktop program for Windows or macOS.
4. Connect to the internet to initialize the free copy each time you use it.
5. Contact [email protected] for more information or help with an update issue.

Verdict

Choose Polychem if you need a broad chemistry teaching resource with simulations and tools for building and managing assessments. Check its stated Mac OS support before choosing it for a Mac, and consider the $295, paid once site licence if you need that plan.