Enhancing Research Skills and Attitudes in Undergraduate Organic Chemistry with a Course-Embedded Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) via Green Organic Synthesis

The Organic Chemistry II laboratory experience is reimagined as a semester-long green synthesis project involving the preparation of sulfa drugs. Student groups select a sulfa drug target to synthesize, research their assigned sulfa drug target, prepare a research plan and brief their instructor on their plan. Once their plan is approved, students prepare their experimental procedures before coming to lab, then synthesize, isolate, purify and analyze their sulfa drug product over the course of the semester. Through this project, students are exposed to a more research-focused laboratory experience. End-of-semester written synthesis exam scores indicate that students engaged in this project scored on average 8 percent higher on the synthesis exam than students who took the course prior to implementation of this project.