We all had met before in previous activities. Two of us went to high school together, two of us were Summer Orientation leaders together, two had previous chemistry classes together, and two of us are in the same organization. Thus, we all decided to form this group--knowing that each of us are hard workers and are determined to do well in this class.

	Arthur, Betsy.     c663922@showme.missouri.edu
	Gupta, Nita	   c665594@showme.missouri.edu
	Nesbitt, Sara	   c639672@showme.missouri.edu
	Rubach, Heidi      c668687@showme.missouri.edu
        (Two of our former members dropped the class).

First, (really informally) met at Lakota and spent about thirty minutes, discussing how we should approach this project. Since four of us are planning to go to Med school, one is planning to go to Vet school, and one is majoring in Chem. Engineering, we decided to research how chemistry effects available medicine for society. We decided the best way to start is to each, individually, research on some topics of medicine and its chem. reactions. After about a week, we met late night at Country Kitchen, to discuss our "findings" and pick the best topic. After that, we met at the computer lab in Arts & Science to compare and research together. (About a hour each week). For this week and final week, we are meeting as often as possible, and spending a lot of time at the computer lab. (We work on our own as well).

Atropine, the Wonder Drug

Initially, we wanted to choose or find information on a pharmaceutical drug which helps people in various ways. One of our members, Heidi Rubach, works in the University Hospital and suggested this drug because it is versatile. We began our search in the directory of the MU home page but realized this spectrum was not broad enough. Thus, we expanded our research to following: Yahoo, Science Magazine location, Webcrawler, Excite, InfoSeek, and tried Library of Congress. In these various programs, we approached this drug from different perspectives, searching under these headings: pharmaceuticals, chemistry, medicine, and biology.

Versatility is the hallmark of Atropine. It is generally present in prescription form, but can also be the active ingredient in over-the-counter medications. It's effects, based on blocking nerve transmitters, range from pain relief to cardiac stimulation. In addition, it is also a potent anti-diarrheal drug.

Atropine exists in many different forms, each with properties enhanced in order to increase the medical effectiveness against specific problems. These traits are actually the direct result of slight variations in chemical properties. In order to compare several forms of atropine, visit here.

While Atropine is undisputably valuable in treating many health problems, it definitely has side effects as well. In fact, these side effects can be quite severe, and patients must be careful with the drug. Consumer advice and warnings surround Atropine: Stop by this info site or at this alternative site for a negative perspective toward the drug.

If gets even worse, though! This valuable, life-saving medication truly has Dr.Jekyll-Mr.Hyde characteristics -- it is a poision under the same circumstances.

Groups can be very helpful in studying organic chemistry. Knowing other students in our classes, we can ask help, discuss difficult problems, and support each other (especially before tests). Thus, a student can learn from his or her peers as well as from the professor and the lectures. Therefore, groups for organic chemistry or for any class in general can be extremely benefical. However, to be quite honest, for this particular group project, our group ran into tremedous amounts of problems. We tried to start on the project early, communicating and meeting early. Yet, two of us got very sick during Feb. and we lost two members because they decided to take the class later. Other than these personal problems, we had technical problems as well. Working on online, we found "trying to find information on the Web" extremely frustrating; usually after we found a site which contained the exact information we needed, the server would be down or the site would ask us to subscribe to a commerical software. We did not know how efficiently search the web, avoiding these commercial sites and finding interesting but also useful information.

	Thank you.  We would appreciate any comments or suggestions you
could offer us on this project.

					Sincerely,
					  &%! members