Book excerpt: This comprehensive laboratory text provides a thorough introduction to all of the significant operations used in the organic lab and includes a large selection of traditional-scale and microscale experiments and minilabs. Its unique problem-solving approach encourages students to think in the laboratory by solving a scientific problem in the process of carrying out each experiment. The Second Edition contains a new introductory section, "Chemistry and the Environment," which includes a discussion of the principles of green chemistry. Several green experiments have been added, and some experiments from the previous editions have been revised to make them greener.