Bringing Organic Chemistry to the Public: Structure and Scent in a Science Museum M. Kevin Brown* ,† and Laura C. Brown* ,† Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, United States Karen Jepson-Innes, Michael Lindeau, and Jeremy Stone WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology, Bloomington, Indiana 47404, United States * S Supporting Information ABSTRACT: We have developed an organic-chemistry-themed museum exhibit that is appropriate for all ages. The goal of the exhibit is to introduce the general public to the concept of molecular structure by relating structure to scent. KEYWORDS: General Public, Public Understanding/Outreach, Organic Chemistry, Hands-On Learning/Manipulatives, Enantiomers, Molecular Properties/Structure, Natural Products O rganic chemistry is often viewed by the general public as a college course that must be survived along the path to becoming a medical doctor, rather than a diverse and intriguing subject that has broad applications in everyday life. Furthermore, the public’s perception about chemistry and chemicals in general is not a fond one. 1-3 Perhaps more importantly, the general public feels uninformed about chemistry, and not at all confident about what it is. 4 One way to counteract this stigma and create a more informed public is to introduce (organic) chemistry concepts to the general public at a much earlier age, as studies have suggested that by early adolescence firm opinions about science have already been established. 5 One particularly fun and engaging medium to experience and learn about science is museum exhibits. 6 Informal learning (e.g., learning in a setting outside a structured classroom such as a science museum) offers a highly valuable education opportunity. 7,8 Through interaction with an exhibit, the user experiences “free-choice learning”. 7 The outcome and reward is therefore determined solely by the user’s curiosity and interest allowing each individual to learn at their own pace. In addition, a single well-designed museum exhibit can reach and inspire thousands of children in a single year. The bar for any successful science museum exhibit is quite high. The exhibit must be safe, durable, exciting, simple, easy to maintain, inexpensive to operate (i.e., require minimal or no consumables), and educational. Despite the highly valuable educational medium accessed with museum exhibits, chemistry is largely absent from science museums. In a 1996 J. Chem. Educ. Association Report, Professor Richard Zare (then-Chair of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation) asked the simple question: “Where’ s the Chemistry in Science Museums?” 9 Despite the passage of almost 20 years, chemistry-themed exhibits are still rare in science museums. In general, chemistry is a subject that is often underrepresented in science museums, due to the focus on demonstration-oriented exhibits. 10 Chemistry demonstrations often require a trained individual to handle chemicals in a controlled environment, which is counter to the interactive nature of the other exhibits and can put excess strain on already tight budgets. The exhibit described herein offers young children the ability to relate something that they are certainly very familiar with, their sense of smell, with something that is perhaps less familiar: atoms, molecules, and chemical structure. Received: July 14, 2016 Revised: October 27, 2016 Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc. A DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00423 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX