Escher: the waterfall and chemical equilibrium. An analogy derived from art for chemistry

Abstract

The use of analogies is widely recognised as an effective teaching strategy that helps students to engage with difficult scientific concepts through a more familiar domain. Chemical equilibrium is a subject that students often find difficult to understand and, in an effort to address this problem, a simple analogy, inspired by “The Waterfall” picture by M. C. Escher, is proposed. This analogy, which is derived from art for chemistry, can be presented as a simple blackboard drawing or as an easy-to-build practical model. Both of these approaches would help to illustrate the dynamic nature of the chemical equilibrium and the controversial Le Châtelier´s principle.