ERIC Number: EJ1452833
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Feb
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0021-9584
EISSN: EISSN-1938-1328
Available Date: N/A
A Student-Friendly Approach to Introduce the Evolution of Planar Chirality
Prabuddha Bhattacharya; Amit Basak
Journal of Chemical Education, v101 n2 p392-397 2024
Chirality continues to intrigue scientists because of its implications in various scientific areas, including the long-unsolved question of its development and link with the origin of life. Chirality plays a significant role in medicine with the advent of chiral drugs and the consequent importance of asymmetric synthesis. For many undergraduate students, stereochemistry, in particular chirality, is challenging, because the topic is highly conceptual, requiring virtual visualization of a molecule in 3-dimensions, contrasting with normal 2-dimensional representations on paper, a board, or a computer screen. Among the various types of chirality, planar chirality is perhaps the most difficult to grasp. Understanding this topic as well as the associated term "chirality plane" (sometimes referred to as a "chiral plane" in textbooks) can be problematic. In this manuscript, we introduce an alternative approach to explain the geometrical requirements leading to the occurrence of planar chirality based on the "dimensional chiral simplex" concept. This pedagogical approach may be better than the standard textbook-based method, as established through a logical comparison of the student performance in a multiple-choice question based test on planar chirality, conducted before and after the dimension-based idea was taught. Moreover, the difference between axial chirality in biaryl systems and planar chirality in cyclophanes, ansa compounds, etc., is explained. The teaching of "atropisomerism", which is generally reserved for biaryls with restricted rotation, is described in relation to compounds with planar chirality.
Descriptors: Science Instruction, Scientific Concepts, Concept Formation, Undergraduate Students, College Science, Chemistry
Division of Chemical Education, Inc. and ACS Publications Division of the American Chemical Society. 1155 Sixteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-227-5558; Tel: 202-872-4600; e-mail: eic@jce.acs.org; Web site: http://pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A