Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
ConfChem Conference on Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable ChemistryAn Online Conference Robert E. Belford*,† and Loyd D. Bastin‡ †
Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas 72204, United States Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania 19013, United States
‡
S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Education is the key to a sustainable future. The incorporation of sustainability and green chemistry into the curriculum for scientists and nonscientists is necessary if society is to change our current path and achieve a sustainable world. The Spring 2010 ConfChem conference, Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry, was held from May 7 to June 30, 2010 and contained 7 papers exploring resources and activities that would be of use to chemical educators who wish to integrate green and sustainable chemistry principles into the curriculum. This communication introduces the conference, addresses what is meant by sustainable, presents an argument for why current practices are nonsustainable, and how through education we can incorporate a sustainable mindset into our experimental and material design, and the practice of chemistry. KEYWORDS: General Public, High School/Introductory Chemistry, First-Year Undergraduate/General, Second-Year Undergraduate, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Curriculum, Environmental Chemistry, Safety/Hazards, Problem Solving/Decision Making, Green Chemistry
I
market place, and unfortunately, it is difficult to impossible to develop empirical metrics to account for the unforeseen and unintended consequences that new products and energy systems can have on the environment and human health. This means chemical compounds and processes are released into the market before empirical data accumulates that indicate unforeseen problems, which is clearly too late for those consequences to be accounted for in the product’s initial cost− benefit analysis that determined if the product was to be marketed in the first place. This failure to align the scientific process with economic metrics means there are fundamental flaws in our decision-making processes that can lead to nonsustainable policies and a misrepresentation of our wealth, health, and prosperity. As scientists and citizens we need to overcome this misalignment of the scientific process with economic metrics by thinking about a sustainable future when we make decisions, an outcome that can only be accomplished if the ideals of sustainability are embedded into our mindsets and thought processes. Since the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring 50 years ago,3 chemist and chemical engineers have reduced risk by designing their experiments and processes in a way that reduces exposure. Green chemistry is a change in philosophy that minimizes risk by reducing or eliminating “the use or generation of hazardous substances in the design, manufacture, and application of chemical products”.4 Green chemistry, by
n 1987, the Brundtland Commission submitted a report to the United Nations that addresses how the world can continue to develop without overwhelming the earth’s resources and to “propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development”.1 In this report, the commission defined the goal of sustainable development as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The importance of sustainable growth is not a new challenge to human civilization and has been recognized by past cultures; for example, the embedding of sustainability is clear in the Iroquois nation’s constitution that dates to ca. 1100 and instructs all chiefs that “In every deliberation, we must consider the impact on the seventh generation”.2 Today, with 21st century technologies, we function as global citizens where the implications of nonsustainable policies and practices have profound consequences to the health and welfare of our planet. This communication is the first of a series of communications from the Spring 2010 ConfChem dealing with the importance of incorporating green and sustainable chemistry into the academic curriculum. Why do we have a problem fulfilling our needs without compromising the needs of future generations, and what role do chemists play? Part of the answer may actually lie in the mindset of how we perform science, on our faith in empirical measurements, and how new chemical products and processes are marketed. Economic cost−benefit analyses determine what new products and energy sources are introduced into the © 2013 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: January 14, 2013 508
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200759r | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 508−509
Journal of Chemical Education
■
asking chemists to incorporate sustainable thinking into experimental and material design, is a tool for creating a sustainable mindset and future. The other tool is education. By educating future scientists and citizens about sustainability and green chemistry, we can begin to create a sustainable mindset in future generations. The Spring 2010 ConfChem conference, Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry,5 that was held from May 7 to June 30, 2010, contains seven papers exploring resources and activities that would be of use to chemical educators who wish to integrate green and sustainable chemistry principles into the curriculum. ConfChems are free online conferences offered by the ACS Division of Chemical Education CCCE (Committee on Computers in Chemical Education),6 where each paper is discussed on a listserv for a week. The discussions for the Spring 2010 ConfChem are appended to this communication as Supporting Information. The following is a list of the papers presented in the actual ConfChem. Each paper has been modified and attached as Supporting Information to the communications published in this Journal. 1. Green Chemistry and Sustainability through the American Chemical Society Education Division and Committee on Environmental Improvement by Laura E. Pence and Mary Kirchhoff. 2. Education Resources from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute by Jennifer L. Young and Robert Peoples. 3. Chemistry and Sustainability: A General Education Science Course Enhancing Students, Faculty and Institutional Programming by Julie A. Haack, John A. Berglund, James E. Hutchison, Darren W. Johnson, Mark C. Longergan, and David R. Tyler. 4. Teaching Green Chemistry: The Driving Force behind the Numbers! by Dalila G. Kovacs. 5. Greening the Organic Curriculum: Development of an Undergraduate Catalytic Chemistry Course by Andrew P. Dicks and Robert A. Batey. 6. Development of Greener Laboratory Manuals for Introductory Chemistry Couse by Sallie Henrie. 7. Solar Energy: A Chemistry Course on Sustainability for General Science Education and Quantitative Reasoning by Scott D. Cummings. Education must be at the center of the movement for a sustainable future, and we must incorporate sustainability into all levels of education. It is our hope that the communications that follow will aid and inspire chemists to incorporate sustainability into various and multiple levels of the curriculum.
■
Communication
REFERENCES
(1) United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development. Our Common Future (The Brundtland Report); Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1987; p 8. (2) This particular paraphrasing of the Iroquois Nation constitution is credited to Oren Lyon, Faithkeeper, Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation. Lyons, O. An Iroquois Perspective. In American Indian Environments: Ecological Issues in Native American History; Vecsey, C., Venables, R. W., Eds; Syracuse University Press: Syracuse, NY, 1978; pp 171−174. (3) Carson, R. Silent Spring; Houghton Mifflin Company: New York, 1962. (4) Anastas, P. T.; Warner, J. C. Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice; Oxford University Press: New York, 1998. (5) Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry − Spring 2010 ConfChem Conference. http://www.ccce. divched.org/spring2010confchem (accessed Nov 2012). (6) American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. http://www.ccce. divched.org/ (accessed Nov 2012).
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information *
The discussions for the Spring 2010 ConfChem papers. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest. 509
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed200759r | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 508−509
