From Research to an Undergraduate Lab Bench: An Undergraduate-Level Guided-Inquiry Experiment to Explore a...

Laboratory work is an essential component of science instruction as it offers students the opportunity to complete hands-on work to acquire practical skills. However, students often lose interest in wet laboratory work due to a lack of understanding and because they fail to connect laboratory work and coursework. The classical structure of chemistry curricula often fragments learning, resulting in disconnected concepts rather than an integrated understanding of the discipline. To address this, the purpose of this research was to develop an integrated experiment that simultaneously illustrates concepts and techniques from two or more subdisciplines of chemistry. The iridium-(III)-catalyzed ortho-directed C-H activation reaction was developed in a research laboratory and optimized as an interdisciplinary, guided-inquiry experiment for an upper-division inorganic chemistry laboratory. The experiment intentionally integrates concepts and techniques from both inorganic and organic chemistry courses, encouraging connections across subdisciplines. Designed to be completed in three 3-h sessions, the experiment offers a model for unifying laboratory and lecture content, supporting the development of both practical skills and interdisciplinary thinking.