ChemEd X data: Exposing students to open scientific data for higher-order thinking and self-regulated learning

ChemEd X Data is an open web tool that collects and curates physical and chemical data of hundreds of substances. This tool allows students to navigate, select, and graphically represent data such as boiling and melting points, enthalpies of combustion, and heat capacities for hundreds of molecules. By doing so, students can independently identify correlations between magnitudes, laws, and outliers. One of the merits of this tool is that it may help students recognize situations when conflicting influences play a role (e.g., molecular weight, shape, and dipole effect on boiling point). Identifying conflicting influences empowers students with analytical skills that leads them to higher-order thinking and self-regulated learning. ChemEd X Data has been implemented in an undergraduate general chemistry course, and it has successfully allowed students identify laws that were not previously known by them.