There is a horrendous deficiency in high school chemistry (including A.P. Chemistry): carbon compounds are ignored. Thus the burden of teaching organic- and biochemistry falls on the shoulders of biology teachers. At the end of the summer of 1993, three high school teachers of A.P.Biology sat down with the instructor of Biology 80 at UC San Diego to go over what components of organic chemistry ought to be taught to AP Biology students at the beginning of that course. A number of students in the class also contributed their insights into this process. It is also recommended that not all the following be given at once, but rather given as needed so as to not overwhelm the students.

ORGANIC CHEMISTRY
(The following assumes a chalk-talk for further explanation.)

This type of chemistry covers most compounds that contain the element carbon. (Occasionally however, even the single-carbon compounds are not considered in inorganic chemistry.)

Most high schoolers and college students have trouble with organic chemistry because suddenly they encounter molecules that are much larger than they have seen before. Despite sizes that can be overwhelming, most follow are rather simple set of rules. It is as if in earlier courses the students learned about bricks and pieces of wood. Now they are looking at whole buildings made of bricks and pieces of wood. Thus big molecules such as DNA can be understood chemically if taken in piece-meal bits. What follows are a few elementary rules dealing with (1) how to name the bits, (2) the many oxidation states of carbon, and (3) a new concept of various 3-D states.

1. The concept of writing in a sort of short-hand must be mentioned. Here the method is to link together dots, which indicate carbon atoms. Since carbons usually have four bonds, any unwritten ones below are filled with H-atoms. For example: CO₂ is and

   =

   ---

2. How many carbons are connected together in sequence:

   methane ethane   propane butane

   pentane hexane heptane octane

   nonane decane undecane dodecane, etc