For teachers and parents

These lessons give a learner a first, friendly path into organic chemistry: 40 short lessons, about 13 hours in total.

The lessons

The lessons in teaching order, with the time each one takes and what it covers
Lesson	Title	Minutes	What it covers
1	Meet carbon	15 min	What atoms are made of, and what makes an atom carbon How many bonds carbon makes, and why How the same carbon atoms make both diamond and graphite What "organic" means to a chemist
2	Sharing is bonding	15 min	What a covalent bond is The difference between single, double and triple bonds How to read and draw displayed formulas
3	Molecules in 3D	15 min	Ball-and-stick and space-filling models Why bonds spread out as far apart as they can The tetrahedron, flat triangle and straight line shapes How lone pairs bend water and ammonia
4	Chains and names	20 min	The first eight alkanes, and what -⁠ane, -⁠ene and -⁠yne mean How to read skeletal formulas What isomers are How to name an alkane with one branch
5	Functional groups	20 min	What a functional group is Alcohols, carboxylic acids, aldehydes, ketones, amines and esters How one small group changes the way a molecule behaves
6	Rings and benzene	20 min	How a carbon chain closes into a ring with 2 fewer hydrogens Why cyclohexane's ring folds into a chair Benzene's flat ring and the six electrons it shares Where benzene rings turn up in flavours, medicines and dyes
7	Mirror-image molecules	15 min	What makes a molecule left- or right-handed How to spot a carbon with four different groups Why mirror-image molecules can smell and act differently
8	How reactions happen	20 min	What happens to bonds, atoms and energy in a reaction Burning, where fuel and oxygen make carbon dioxide and water Addition across a C=C double bond Condensation, where two molecules join and give off water
9	Polymers	20 min	What monomers and polymers are How ethene's double bond opens to make poly(ethene), and how to draw a repeat unit How nylon and polyesters are made by condensation Why long chains make strong, bendy materials
10	Molecules of life	20 min	Glucose, and how it joins into starch and cellulose Fats and oils as big esters, and why oils stay liquid Proteins, made of amino acids joined by peptide bonds How DNA's base pairs fit together and store instructions
11	Uneven sharing	15 min	Why some atoms pull harder on shared electrons than others What partial charges are, and how chemists mark them Why water is a polar molecule and carbon dioxide is not How a microwave oven heats food by turning water molecules
12	Molecules that stick together	20 min	The pulls between molecules, and how they set boiling points What a hydrogen bond is, and why water boils at 100 °C Why oil and water separate, and what dissolves in what Why ice floats, and how hydrogen bonds hold DNA's base pairs together
13	Acids and bases	20 min	What makes a molecule an acid or a base How the pH scale works Why baking soda fizzes in vinegar
14	Soap and washing up	15 min	How soap is made by splitting fats with a strong base Why a soap molecule has a water-loving end and an oil-loving end How soap molecules wrap up grease so water can wash it away
15	Colour	20 min	How a coloured molecule absorbs some colours of light and sends back the rest Why long runs of alternating double bonds give carrots and tomatoes their colour Which molecules colour leaves, berries and red cabbage How red cabbage juice changes colour with pH
16	Speeding reactions up	20 min	Why molecules must collide the right way round and hard enough to react The energy hill every reaction has to climb Why heat, crowding and fine powders speed reactions up How catalysts and enzymes lower the hill
17	Oxidation	20 min	What oxidation means for a carbon compound How ethanol turns into ethanal and then ethanoic acid Why a cut apple turns brown, and how lemon juice slows it Why oils go rancid, and how antioxidants protect them
18	Fuels and energy	20 min	How crude oil is separated by boiling point Why burning a fuel gives out energy, and why some fuels give out more per gram What an octane rating measures Where biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel come from
19	Medicines	20 min	How a medicine fits a pocket in its target protein How aspirin came from willow bark, and how it blocks an enzyme Why the hand of a medicine molecule matters How penicillin's squeezed ring jams the enzyme that builds a bacterium's wall
20	Kitchen chemistry	20 min	What happens when sugar turns to caramel Why toast and seared meat turn brown and taste richer Why an egg sets when you cook it How the ideas from the whole course meet in the kitchen
21	Curly arrows	20 min	What a curly arrow shows, from its tail to its head Why electrons flow from electron-rich places to electron-poor ones How a base takes H⁺ from an acid, in two arrows How bromine adds to ethene, step by step
22	Separating mixtures	20 min	How chemists tell a pure substance from a mixture How distillation separates liquids by boiling point How chromatography separates molecules by how they stick How decaf coffee is made
23	How chemists see molecules	20 min	Why each kind of bond absorbs its own infrared light How to spot O–⁠H and C=O bonds in an infrared spectrum How a mass spectrometer weighs a molecule and its pieces What NMR shows about a molecule's hydrogens, and how MRI uses it
24	Making molecules	20 min	How chemists plan a synthesis by working backwards from the target How aspirin is made from salicylic acid in a lab How chemists check that a product is pure How to work out a yield, and why it falls with every step
25	Greener chemistry	20 min	What makes a chemical process greener, and how to work out its atom economy How plastics are recycled, and what the codes mean Why some plastics break down and others last
26	Cis and trans	15 min	Why groups cannot turn around a double bond The difference between cis and trans How light flips a molecule in your eye What trans fats are, and why they are solid
27	Smell and taste	20 min	How smell receptors turn molecules into patterns your brain reads Why some mirror-image pairs smell different and others smell the same Why chilli feels hot and menthol feels cold What the five tastes pick up, and why sweeteners are needed in such small amounts
28	Messengers in your body	20 min	What hormones and neurotransmitters are, and how they fit their receptors How your body builds dopamine and serotonin from amino acids Why your body makes just one hand of adrenaline How caffeine keeps you awake
29	Air and climate	25 min	What air is made of How some gases trap heat, and why nitrogen and oxygen let it pass Where the carbon dioxide and methane in the air come from How CFCs thinned the ozone layer, and how it is recovering
30	New forms of carbon	15 min	What graphene is, and why it is so strong and conducts electricity How nanotubes and buckyballs are rolled and folded graphene Where these new forms of carbon are used
31	Rubber and stretch	20 min	Why rubber's long cis chains coil, stretch and snap back How sulfur bridges between chains make rubber tough Why a stretched rubber band warms up What goes into tyres and synthetic rubber
32	Glues	15 min	How glue holds on to a surface Why superglue sets in seconds How two-part epoxy glue hardens Glues made by living things
33	Fibres and fabrics	25 min	What cotton, wool and silk are made of, and how hydrogen bonds hold their chains How drawing out polyester and nylon fibres lines up their chains Why Kevlar's stiff, lined-up chains make it so strong How dyes hold on to cotton, wool and polyester
34	Sunscreen and skin	15 min	What ultraviolet light is, and how it harms the DNA in skin How sunscreen molecules absorb UV and turn it into heat How melanin shades your skin cells How sunlight helps your skin make vitamin D
35	Molecules that glow	15 min	How a reaction can give out light How fireflies glow Why highlighter ink glows under ultraviolet light How organic LEDs light up a screen
36	Photosynthesis	20 min	What goes into photosynthesis and what comes out How chlorophyll catches light Where the oxygen you breathe comes from How an enzyme builds carbon dioxide into sugar
37	Energy in your cells	20 min	Why respiration gives out the same energy as burning glucose Why cells break glucose down in many small steps How ATP carries energy around a cell Where the carbon dioxide you breathe out comes from
38	Carbon dating	20 min	What isotopes are How carbon-14 forms in the air and gets into living things What a half-life is How carbon dating finds the age of wood and bone, and how tree rings correct it
39	Carbon in space	20 min	How stars make carbon from helium and spread it through space How radio telescopes find molecules between the stars What meteorites, asteroids and comets carry Where buckyballs have turned up in space
40	Why carbon?	20 min	What makes carbon's chains and rings so stable How silicon, carbon's neighbour, compares Why carbon dioxide is a gas and silica is sand What silicon builds: glass, chips and silicones
Total		755 min

Using the lessons with a class or at home

Plan on one lesson per sitting, and take them in order: each lesson uses ideas from the one before.

Every lesson is open to everyone, so a learner can start straight away.
Each learner can pick a username and a password to keep their progress on any device. Sections they finished before signing up move into the new account.
Each section ends with a quick check that shows right away what stuck.
The lessons work on phones and tablets, in light and dark mode.
Every drawing carries a text description for screen readers.

Reuse and citation

The lesson text and drawings are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You can copy, adapt and share them, in class or anywhere else. Credit carboncarbon.bond with a link to the site and a link to the licence, and say if you changed anything. Here is a ready citation:

carboncarbon.bond, organic chemistry lessons, https://carboncarbon.bond/, licensed CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Molecule structures come from PubChem, and the sources page lists every source.