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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1997  > July  >
In the Laboratory
A New Investigative Sophomore Organic Laboratory Involving Individual Research Projects
Gregory B. Kharas
Cover
July 1997
Vol. 74 No. 7
p. 829
Abstract
The problem-solving approach calls for a laboratory curriculum that provides a greater intellectual challenge and the resemblance to a research experience. A curriculum was designed which involves individual research projects for the nine laboratories of the spring quarter of a three-quarter introductory organic chemistry course. These projects integrate the instructor's research and learning experiences for the students via interdisciplinary approaches of classical organic chemistry and polymer chemistry. The foundations for the individual research projects are laid out during the first and second quarters of laboratory instruction when students are introduced to classic synthetic, separation and purification techniques. In the third quarter of lab sequence, in carrying out the individual research projects, the emphasis is shifted towards obtaining and interpreting data for compounds that are not described in the laboratory manual rather than making representative compounds. The research is an open end laboratory project that includes an on-line and printed Chemical Abstracts literature search, molecular computer modeling, a microscale monomer synthesis and characterization, scale-up synthesis, polymer synthesis and characterization. By changing functional groups on the vinyl monomer molecule, the class can explore reactivity of one "family" of compounds and consequently polymers. This approach is based on the integration of genuine research experience with laboratory instruction in accessible but non-trivial manner.
More Information
*  Citation
 Kharas, Gregory B. J. Chem. Educ. 1997 74 829.
*  Keywords
 Curriculum, Organic Chemistry, Polymer Chemistry, Laboratory Instruction, Undergraduate Research
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 July 28, 1999
June 23, 2005
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