The project will enhance students' conceptual understanding of organic chemistry,develop students' scientific problem solving skills, and increase students' enjoyment of science using an adaptation of the discovery approach of the new University of Michigan organic chemistry sequence to a format suitable for a suburban community college. The key modification is the provision for a more supportive environment to encourage and motivate a very diverse student population. Computer based tools will be used to provide conceptual organization and structure to laboratory work and to establish stronger links between the lecture and laboratory. The computer based organizational shell will combine visualizations of molecular models and mechanistic animations with spectroscopic data and laboratory observations to help students build mental models of chemical phenomena based upon how chemists think at the molecular level. In classroom and laboratory lectures, faculty routinely will use computer displays to illustrate basic concepts of organic chemistry and to show the inter- relationships between theory and experiments. Students will use the software in the laboratory to better understand the underlying concepts, experimental design, and analysis of instrumental data.
