A one-step mini-synthesis project has been adopted in the first semester of organic chemistry laboratory to bridge the gap between refining experimental techniques and proposing and executing a two-step synthetic sequence. For this three-week project students—a) modify a previously attempted one-step synthesis experiment to a substrate of their choosing in a formal project proposal; b) conduct two or three trials of the experiment; and c) analyze their results via 1H and 13C NMR and infrared spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. Students report their results in a formal laboratory paper in ACS style as well as a PowerPoint presentation.
Garrett et al. (Wed,) studied this question.