Book and Media Review pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Review of Organic Chemistry: An Introductory Text Emphasizing Biological Connections, 2nd Edition David P. Pursell* School of Science and Technology, Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, United States course contributes to “the math-science death march” perception. At Juniata College, where Reingold is professor of chemistry, students take “general bioorganic” during their first year of chemistry, followed by analytical and inorganic chemistry in their second year.3 From this point, chemistry majors recapture some of the organic topics they may have missed in this scheme through an advanced organic course, while students with other academic majors continue with their own particular academic programs. Reingold has detailed the rationale for this approach in commentaries for both the chemistry4 and biology education5 communities, including discussion of why some traditional topics in organic chemistry are left out to make room in the curriculum for the general chemistry and biochemistry topics incorporated in the first-year organic course. It is interesting to note that the “organic first” program at Juniata College meets the requirements for ACS program approval and student certification outlined by the ACS Committee on Professional Training.6 While taking the path of Juniata College presents many obstacles for faculty at other institutions, Reingold’s text is written specifically to support the Juniata approach. The text is written in two parts: introduction and review of basic concepts of a traditional general chemistry course needed for the study of organic chemistry followed by the organic chemistry portion with plenty of application to biological systems. The introductory material includes six chapters: Chapter 1, Basic Concepts; Chapter 2, Electronic Structure; Chapter 3, Bonding; Chapter 4, Molecular Shapes: Hybridization; Chapter 5, Polarity and Intermolecular Forces; and Chapter 6, Quantities in Chemistry. The introductory portion of the text is designed for about three to eight weeks of instruction, depending on the capabilities and prior chemistry experience of the students. Chapter 1 focuses on elements, atoms, subatomic particles, isotopes, atomic weights, and introduces mass spectrometry as a technique to determine mass. Readers will note from the start that this is not a typical text. The writing is, as the author describes it, “conversational”, “folksy,” and simplifieddirected at first-year students. It is not written in the technical, precise style often found in texts. The math is simple. There is no lengthy discussion, as in the early chapter(s) of most texts, of precision, accuracy, measurement, significant figures, scientific notation, calculations, and so on. Reingold’s text gets right to the basics without diluting student attention with “the math of things”, which is covered in the text’s first appendix. There are guided example problems within the chapter as well as end-ofchapter problems with selected answers. While there are not
Organic Chemistry: An Introductory Text Emphasizing Biological Connections, 2nd edition, by I. David Reingold. McGraw Hill: Boston, MA, 2011. pp. ISBN: 978-0078044670 (paper). $65.
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here is much to admire in Reingold’s bold vision for initial undergraduate chemistry instruction as represented in Organic Chemistry: An Introductory Text Emphasizing Biological Connections. It is bold because it takes risk with respect to the “traditional” view of sophomore (second-year) chemistry, moving the organic course (with a biological focus while removing some of the traditional organic content) to the freshman (first) year. The book is written in a relaxed, conversational style aimed at first-year students rather than a style geared toward faculty. It has a low price compared to more conventional organic texts, always a plus for students whose texts may cost $1000 or more per semester. At the same time, some faculty and students may find the admirable points noted above as detractions. For chemistry faculty looking to run a “nontraditional” organic course, Reingold’s organic text is worth a very close examination. Most colleges and universities use a traditional approach to the first two years of undergraduate chemistry. The tradition is a year of general chemistry with lab, a somewhat mathematical treatment of an assortment of basic, yet often disconnected topics during the first year of study. The second year follows with two semesters of organic chemistry with lab. While the majority of faculty work to make the yearlong organic experience relevant to the wide-ranging interests of students, many students view it as “the infamous, dreaded ‘orgo’, a marathon of memorization.”1 The rigors of the traditional firstyear general chemistry and second-year organic chemistry sequence are part of what David Goldberg of the University of Illinois calls “the math-science death march” of calculus, physics, and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students.2 As Reingold notes in the Forward of Organic Chemistry, his text is based on two premises. Premise number one is that the topic of organic chemistry is relatively self-contained and builds sequentially, making it a more natural vehicle to introduce basic chemistry concepts than the traditional first-year general chemistry which is a series of disconnected topics. Premise number two is that the traditional second-year organic course pushes through lots of material (perhaps too much material) of interest to chemists, but of less interest to those students who are not chemistry majors. Because the majority of students taking organic chemistry are not chemistry majors, rather than inspire the majority of students by demonstrating how organic chemistry supports student pursuits, the traditional organic © 2012 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
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the pages and pages of end-of-chapter problems often found in introductory texts, the problems Reingold does include are sufficient in quantity and quality to provide students with problem-solving opportunities. Readers will also note that the text is not full of eye-popping photos and graphics, helping keep the cost of the text very low ($65 at Amazon) versus the more usual $200 for other texts. The remaining chapters in the introductory portion build on the concepts of atoms, and include: electronic structure; bonding and compounds; the three-dimensional shape of molecules; polarity; and intermolecular forces. The text maintains the style of the first chapter, incorporating biological examples of these fundamental concepts at every opportunity. The introductory material culminates with stoichiometry and uses molecules and systems directly applicable to organic chemistry. By the end of Chapter 6, the introductory portion of the text has developed the fundamental chemistry concepts and techniques that first-year students need to begin the study of organic chemistry. The organic portion constitutes the remainder of the text and is designed to take students through the end of the first year. The chapter titles of the remainder of the text are similar to those you find in traditional organic texts: Chapter 7, Alkanes and Cycloalkanes; Chapters 10 and 11, Alkenes I and II; Chapter 14, Structure Determination; Chapters 18−20, Carbonyl Chemistry I−III; and so forth. Differing from other texts, aromatic chemistry is the last chapter. By incorporating introductory material and focusing on bioorganic topics, Reingold has left out many “traditional” organic topics in order to make the course manageable for first-year students. So what has been left out? Reingold discusses elsewhere5 his rationale for leaving topics out, providing a summary in Table 2.5 As he notes, chemistry majors pick up these topics in their advanced organic course at Juniata College during their junior and senior years, so these topics are not lost for chemistry majors. For the majority of students who are not chemistry majors, Reingold argues, these topics are not essential. Other organic texts with a biological approach are available. For example, John McMurry’s Organic Chemistry: With Biological Applications7 is designed for a year of organic chemistry after students have taken an initial year of general chemistry. With the addition of many biological applications, McMurry has also “left out” some of the traditional topics. I taught organic chemistry from McMurry’s text for several years, primarily to biology majors. The majority of our faculty felt it left too many topics out of the organic curriculum, so after three years with the McMurry text, we adopted a more traditional text. Some organic texts with a biological approach are also freely available online, such as Organic Chemistry with a Biological Emphasis,8 part of the Dynamic Chemistry Textbook project directed by Delmar Larson at the University of California, Davis. Reingold’s bioorganic course during the first year of college is intriguing and the text he has written to support this course is student friendly, loaded with biological applications of organic chemistry, and a great fit for chemistry programs taking the Juniata College approach. Organic Chemistry: An Introductory Text Emphasizing Biological Connections is an excellent text that supports a sea change in the approach to first- and second-year chemistry instruction.
Book and Media Review
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) Zurer, P. S. Chem. Eng. News 2001, 79 (16), 42−43. (2) Drew, C. Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard). The New York Times, November 4, 2011. (3) Department of Chemistry, Juniata College. http://www.juniata. edu/departments/chemistry/ (accessed Oct 2012). (4) Reingold, I. D. Bioorganic First: A New Model for the College Chemistry Curriculum. J. Chem. Educ. 2001, 78 (7), 869−871. (5) Reingold, I. D. Organic First: A Biology-Friendly Chemistry Curriculum. Cell Biol. Educ. 2005, 4 (4), 281−283. (6) ACS Committee on Professional Training. Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs, Spring 2008. http:// portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/about/governance/committees/ training/acsapproved/degreeprogram/WPCP_008491 (accessed Oct 2012). (7) McMurry, J. C. Organic Chemistry: With Biological Applications, 2nd ed.; Brooks-Cole: Belmont, CA, 2010. (8) UCDavis ChemWiki. Dynamic Textbook Project: Organic Chemistry with a Biological Emphasis. http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/ Organic_Chemistry/Organic_Chemistry_With_a_Biological_ Emphasis (accessed Oct 2012).
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