The official description of this course is as follows: “Organic chemistry is the chemistry of the compounds of carbon. CHE 210 is the first half of a comprehensive one-year course suitable for science majors. The first semester course includes structural and functional aspects of saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons with various heteroatom functionalities. Discussion focuses on the mechanistic basis for organic compound reactivity” ( UNE School of Math & Physical Sci Department).

In this course, I learned the basics of organic chemistry, as well as how the concepts could be applied in future professions. The work sample that I have provided is a demonstration of the group activities that are preformed every class, this one in particular is about drawing bond line structures. Bond line structures are critical components of this course, and are essentially the language of organic chemistry. These representations help chemists understand how atoms are arranged on a molecule in a simple and cohesive way. The selected activity, preformed in the early weeks of the semester, helped my peers and I how to deceiver bond line structure which is necessary to move on to other chemistry topics.

The example below shows how these activities were designed to let students use intuition to learn topics for themselves, before they are discussed and taught to the class. Online lecture videos are also released by our professor prior to these activities, allowing for a brief overview of the new content being introduced.