This book builds on the success of the three editions of Laboratory Experiments in Organic Chemistry by Jerry Mohrig and Douglas Neckers, bringing it into the twenty-first century with modern chemistry and thoughtful pedagogy. Chemistry is an experimental science. It is in the laboratory that students learn its process. Our primary objective was to write a laboratory text that involves students in the process. Using the laboratory only to have students confirm what they have seen in the classroom wastes a precious opportunity. Although we include a number of standard synthesis experiments, we also provide the chance for students to test ideas and address experimental questions in an atmosphere where they can succeed, making the organic chemistry laboratory rewarding and enjoyable for both students and their teachers.
A Balanced Approach
We provide a wide variety of experiments and projects, including a balanced approach of macroscale and microscale, thereby allowing a great deal of flexibility in planning a laboratory program. The mix of macroscale and microscale experiments allows students to start with macroscale work to gain confidence before progressing to microscale. Many experiments are written with both macroscale and microscale procedures. Our macroscale experiments use the smallest reagent quantities that lead to successful results. The scale is tailored to fit the conditions of the reaction and the methods used to characterize the product. Our microscale experiments use 150-250 mg of starting material, which provides significant savings in chemical and waste disposal costs, yet ensures that students almost always have the satisfaction of a successful outcome.
An Investigative Approach
The book has many discovery-based experiments that involve students in active learning. They take students beyond the "cookbook" approach to address questions whose answers come from their experimental data. Which isomer was formed? What does the product ratio tell you about the reaction mechanism? What is the identity of the product? Answering questions requires mastery of good laboratory technique, learned in the process of scientific investigation. The experiments are carefully designed to reward student efforts with success.
We have included a wide range of multiweek projects in the book. Unlike most other organic chemistry lab texts, there are projects designed for the introductory level as well as more sophisticated projects for the second-semester laboratory. Indeed, it is possible to plan an entire laboratory program around the project approach. Multiweek projects allow students to become much more engaged with their laboratory work than is often possible with a set of separate 3- to 4-hour experiments. Certainly chemists do not practice their science in short segments. Research is always a project approach. The flexible use of time in multiweek projects allows students more opportunity to engage in an active learning environment. Projects also provide effective opportunities for teamwork.
A Practical Approach
In addition to offering students many attractive choices and options that we hope will catch their interest, the experiments work. For the past three years, they have been class tested at Vassar College, Carleton College, and Bowling Green State University. We have used this student and faculty input to revise and improve them.
Our experiments teach the fundamental methods of modern laboratory technique, including an appreciation of organic synthesis, bioorganic chemistry, and the analysis and characterization of organic compounds. There is extensive use of NMR and IR, analyzing reactions by TLC and GLC, Wittig methodology, and phase-transfer catalysis. Although 300-MHz FTNMR spectra are standard throughout the book, it is also possible to do most experiments and projects successfully using 60-MHz NMR.
In any laboratory, safety and waste disposal are important issues. They have been considered in the development of every experiment. Each experiment includes information on the safe handling of chemicals. How to handle reaction by-products and waste materials is also provided at the end of every procedure, with specific directions relating to cleaning up and neutralizing aqueous solutions.
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ORGANIZATION
The book is divided into five parts. The table of contents shows that Part 1, Experiments, is comprehensive enough to permit a complete course using either macroscale experiments or microscale techniques. Part 2, Projects, offers students the opportunity to probe areas of organic chemistry that would be impossible to explore in a single lab period in an environment that fosters active learning. Part 3, Organic Qualitative Analysis, is based on a flexible combination of modern spectrometry and classical chemical methods. Modern spectrometry has revolutionized structure determination in organic chemistry, and Part 4, Spectrometric Methods, discusses them in detail. In Part 5, the major Techniques of the Organic Laboratory are discussed comprehensively, and they are extensively cross referenced in all experimental procedures. We use square brackets--[see Technique 3.2]--to make it easy for the student to find the details of a specific technique when they encounter it in an experiment.
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SUPPLEMENTS
An Instructor's Manual is available. It gives approximate times required for completion of the experiments, the amounts of reagents, equipment, and supplies needed, good ways to dispense reagents, and answers to the questions that appear at the end of each experiment. It also includes sample syllabi that provide options for structuring an organic chemistry laboratory program.
A CD-ROM by Melanie Cooper and Timothy S. Kerns, which contains virtual reality movies of selected techniques, is packaged inside the back cover of the book. These techniques are identified in the book by the icon. We suggest that the appropriate movie be viewed as part of the prelab preparation for using a new technique.
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Vollhardt & Schore, Organic Chemistry: Structure and Function, 3rd Edition, 1998
W. H. Freeman & Co. and Sumanas, Inc.