A Serendipitous Extension for Illustrating Newman Projections

Abstract

The article entitled “Illustrating Newman Projections by Using Overhead Transparencies” by Sylverman and Barbaro (1) was well received by our undergraduate students of organic chemistry. They were able to understand the different conformations of ethane more easily than the students in other courses. However, in the middle of the lecture about conformational structures for another group of students, the lamp of the projector broke, and we had to make a quick innovation. We distributed two transparencies about 10 cm × 10 cm, a small piece of chalk, and two thumbtacks for each student. We drew both eclipsed and staggered conformations on the board and suggested that the students prepare the corresponding models in the hope that the process of “doing for understanding” would be much more effective than the experience of the former demonstration.