Aligning the Undergraduate Organic Laboratory Experience with Professional Work: The Centrality of Reliable and Meaningful Data

Many traditional organic chemistry lab courses do not adequately help students to develop the professional skills required for creative, independent work. The overarching goal of the new organic chemistry lab series at Seattle University is to teach undergraduates to think, perform, and behave more like professional scientists. The conversion of experiments that inhibited professional development into simple but authentic studies that generate reliable and meaningful data is described. This strategy seems to hell; students better assimilate into research groups and could easily be applied to a broad range of experiment types and undergraduate teaching environments.