Design and Delivery of Virtual Inquiry-Based Organic Chemistry Experiments

Guided-inquiry experiments are an important tool for helping students develop scientific practices such as hypothesizing and problem solving. In organic chemistry, these types of experiments can help students learn how to connect the theory of the reaction to the observation and data to decide how the reaction is proceeding or if it needs adapting. Due to a reduction of in person teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed a set of virtual inquiry-based organic chemistry experiments where students make the same decisions as they would do with a hands-on inquiry experiment. Thus, these simulations allow students to learn similar problem-solving skills. In this paper, we provide details of the simulations and the educational outcomes when they were used to replace hands-on inquiry experiments. We also include suggestions for its use postpandemic.