eng Science and Education Publishing World Journal of Chemical Education 2375-1657 2018-01-27 6 1 18 23 10.12691/wjce-6-1-4 WJCE2018614 article Catharina Schmitt 1 Michael Schween schweenm@staff.uni-marburg.de 1 Faculty of Chemistry, Philipps-Universit?t Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Stra?e 4, Marburg, Germany Mechanistic problem-solving is the scientific core competence of organic chemistry. Hence, many students struggle with developing multivariate mechanistic thinking. They very often rely on memorized rules and propose products without providing a detailed mechanistic pathway. They simply apply problem-solving strategies from general chemistry, which is more product-oriented than organic chemistry. A process-oriented view that is highly demanded in organic chemistry requires the understanding and connection of basic principles and concepts. In order to practice the process-oriented approach and introduce advanced German high school students to mechanistic thinking, we developed a set of three new experiments to generate carbocations in model reactions for the observation of reactive intermediates. Trityl cations proved to be the best ones for an experimental investigation of a reaction's progress which is accessible with a simple analysis that generates explicit results by changes in color and electric conductivity. The experiments are arranged in a guided inquiry workshop of six steps alternating theoretical (oral group discussions) and experimental phases. http://pubs.sciepub.com/wjce/6/1/4/wjce-6-1-4.pdf high school First-Year Undergraduate Laboratory Instruction organic chemistry problem-solving carbocations conductivity kinetics Mechanisms of Reactions reactive intermediates