This article presents the results of analysis of Czech and Russian textbooks intended for organic chemistry teaching at upper secondary schools. In principle, the estimation of textbook didactic capacity is based on decomposition of the textbook content into a set of different objects and their subsequent frequency analysis. In this study, three Czech textbooks and three Russian textbooks were characterized by particular and total didactic capacity coefficients. The indifference of the calculated didactic capacities was tested by chi-square statistics at a level of significance α = 0.05. The results show that the selected Czech and Russian textbooks are not significantly different.
Sulfanilic acid represents an important substance, which is frequently utilized in the industry of azo dyes as well as in drug development of antimicrobials (e.g. of sulfonamides). Students can also meet with such type of compounds in chemistry labs, for example, when they estimate pH by methyl orange indicator or prepare Orange II for textile colouring. Both of these dyes are products of azo coupling of sulfanilic acid as diazonium salt with N,N-dimethylaniline or 2-naphthol, respectively. In the article, we focus on the synthesis of sulfanilic acid as a well-known experiment in the organic chemistry education. The synthesis was modified as the solvent free and microwave assisted experiment under semimicroscale conditions. That experiment is very convenient for the organic chemistry courses in the university or the high school teaching.
Molecular models derived from results of quantum-chemical calculations present an important category of didactic instruments in chemistry education in upper secondary school and, particularly, at university. These models can be used especially as tools for supporting the students’ understanding by visual learning, which can adequately address complexity of many chemical topics, incorporate appropriate didactic principles, as well as utilize the benefits brought up by the actual information technology. The proposed molecular models are non-trivial examples of didactic application of computational chemistry techniques in illustration of electron interactions in amidic group, namely the interaction of the free electron pair on the nitrogen atom with the carbonyl group and also the interaction of atoms in the amide group with other surrounding atoms in the molecule. By these molecular models it is possible to explain acid-base properties of amides applying knowledge of electron density distribution in the molecules and the resulting electrostatic potential. Presentation of the structure and properties of the amides within education is important also for the reason that amidic functions are involved in many important natural substances (e.g. proteins, peptides, nucleic acids or alkaloids), synthetic macromolecular substances (e.g. Silon) or pharmaceutical preparations (e.g. paracetamol). Molecular models then serve to support better understanding of the structure of these substances and, in relation to it, their properties.
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