Resumen de Development of an at-Home Chemistry Lab Experience for Survey of Organic Chemistry Students
Danielle Pitre, Sean Stokes, Deb Mlsna
Educators at Mississippi State University developed an at-home, kitchen chemistry style laboratory to accompany the Survey of Organic Chemistry lecture course. The course featured 12 lab activities; eight hands-on experiences that focused primarily on important organic concepts including acid strength, extraction techniques, chromatographic separation, recrystallization, and selected organic reactions. Four online modeling experiences used ChemSketch and three-dimensional visualization to support student understanding of stereochemistry, isomer configurations, and important reaction mechanisms. A unique component of this laboratory course was that students uploaded photo diaries of their experiments to demonstrate completion. The developed course was implemented and taught for three semesters at Mississippi State University with 119 students successfully completing the at-home, self-paced laboratory course. The authors share this at-home laboratory experience as an option for programs exploring novel, off-campus approaches to laboratory experiences.
