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I think this almost goes without saying — that introductory chemistry classes (and to some degree, also organic chemistry as well) doesn’t fit real research activity in the subject. Moreover, while many concepts taught in introductory classes are absolutely required for further chemistry study (i.e., you need to understand ideas about bonding, writing chemical formulas, balancing equations, etc.) the standard curriculum has been identical for many years.

(My high school chemistry teacher, who was 68 years young at the time and a good teacher, if a bit quirky, admitted his class hadn’t changed much over the time he was teaching.)

Carnegie Mellon Press Release: March 3, 2005

High school textbooks focus on teaching a set of basic tools that chemists use, but they often fail to address how those tools are used by practicing chemists… If one of our goals is to educate scientifically literate people who can read Scientific American and the science section of The New York Times, then we are not giving them the tools they need. We may also be missing chances to attract talented students to this important field.

Professors at U. Pittsburg and Carnegie Mellon working on this have created The Chemistry Collective a series of scenario-based activities.