OrgoDraw for teachers

Free practice in naming organic compounds that you can hand to your class. Students draw structures from names or name structures, and get instant feedback that explains their mistakes. There are no accounts and nothing to install.

What your students get

163 exercises in which students draw a structure from its IUPAC name, with hints and a worked answer for each.
163 structures to name, each with four names to choose from and an explanation for every wrong choice.
A free drawing page that shows the name, formula and functional groups of any structure as it is drawn.
Short guides to each topic and a summary of the IUPAC naming rules.
It works in any current browser on phones, tablets and computers, in English, Spanish, French and German.

Links to share

Each link opens one topic in one practice mode. Copy it into your course page, your learning platform or an email. To start at a single level, add &level=beginner, &level=intermediate or &level=advanced to a topic link.

Embed the practice in your own page

Each topic’s drawing practice can run inside your course page, a learning platform, a blog or a Google Site: paste the embed code wherever the page accepts HTML or an embed code. Students practice without leaving your page, and a link opens the full site in a new tab. The embedded practice shows no advertising.

The code for the first topic looks like this; for the others only the address changes:

<iframe src="https://orgodraw.com/embed/alkanes/" title="OrgoDraw: Alkanes and cycloalkanes" width="100%" height="800" loading="lazy"></iframe>

A height of 800 pixels shows the editor and the feedback; the frame scrolls for the rest. Depending on the browser, progress made in the embedded practice is kept separately from progress on OrgoDraw itself, or not at all.

Printable worksheets

One worksheet per topic, ready to print. Part A lists names to draw, part B shows structures to name, with different compounds in each part. Each worksheet has an answer key, which search engines do not list.

For students, each compound family also has a page with a short summary of its naming rules, all its exercises and its worksheet: organic nomenclature practice by family.

Ideas for using it in class

Homework: share the link to one topic and ask students to solve every exercise in it.
Warm-up: project the free drawing page, draw a structure with the class and discuss its name.
Exit ticket: hand out part of a worksheet in the last ten minutes of a lesson.
Revision: before a test, students work through the advanced level of each topic and use the hints only when stuck.
Self-check: students draw the answers to your own exercises on the free drawing page and see the name of what they drew.

Good to know

There are no student accounts, so you cannot see your students' results. Each student's progress stays in their own browser; they can show you their progress page or a screenshot of it.
Answers are checked by comparing molecules, not pictures, so a correct structure is accepted however it is drawn. How grading works explains every rule.
Exercise names follow the current IUPAC recommendations (2013), for example but-2-ene and propan-2-ol rather than 2-butene and 2-propanol. Where the 2013 recommendations prefer a retained name (toluene, acetic acid and the names derived from it), the exercise uses the systematic name that many courses teach (methylbenzene, ethanoic acid), and the worked answer shows the preferred IUPAC name next to it. Every name is checked against its structure with two independent sources before it is published.
On the free drawing page, names of structures that are not among the exercises come from PubChem and can differ in style.

Suggestions and corrections

Missing a topic or a type of exercise your course needs, or found a mistake? Please write through the contact page.