Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
ConfChem Conference on Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable ChemistryEducation Resources from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute Jennifer L. Young*,† and Robert Peoples‡ †
ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute, Washington, D.C. 20005, United States ACS Green Chemistry Institute, Washington, D.C. 20036, United States
‡
S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: As a leader in green chemistry education, the ACS Green Chemistry Institute (ACS GCI) has developed resources for educators, students, and professionals. This communication summarizes one of the invited papers to the ConfChem online conference Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry, held from May 7 to June 30, 2010 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE). The paper, “Educational Resources from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute,” discussed May 14−20, 2010 during the conference covered the breadth of educational resources developed by ACS GCI. This communication highlights several new activities since the online conference, including a textbook, online tools and webinars, workshops, student award, and research grant. KEYWORDS: First-Year Undergraduate/General, Second-Year Undergraduate, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Graduate Education/Research, Continuing Education, Environmental Chemistry, Curriculum, Safety/Hazards, Green Chemistry, Professional Development
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event. Quarterly webinars focused on green chemistry and sustainability topics, coordinated by ACS GCI, since the spring 2010 ConfChem have included • Funding: “Department of Commerce Sustainable Manufacturing InitiativeGovernment Resources that Support Sustainable Manufacturing” with Morgan Barr, International Economist, DoC Sustainable Manufacturing Initiative, July 29, 2010.3 • Policy: “How Chemical Policy Reform Can Spur Green Chemistry” with Richard Denison, Environmental Defense Fund, November 18, 2010.4 • Business: “Do Business and Chemistry Skills Have To Be like Oil & Water?” with Lynn Leger, GreenCentre Canada, January 27, 2011.5 • Energy: “Green Chemistry and Renewable Energy Two Peas in a Pod” with Michael Heben, University of Toledo, May 12, 2011.6 • Teaching: “Going Green in the Chemistry Teaching Laboratory” with Ken Doxsee, University of Oregon, September 8, 2011.7 • Business: “Green Chemistry and Global Access to Medicines in Developing Countries” with Joseph Fortunak, Howard University, June 14, 2012.8 During 2010, ACS GCI held workshops for educators at the 21st Biennial Conference on Chemical Education and at the Eastern Analytical Symposium. A new workshop series (101
ducation is a key pillar of the ACS Green Chemistry Institute’s (ACS GCI) mission, to catalyze and enable the implementation of green chemistry and engineering throughout the global chemical enterprise. As such, several new educational resources have been developed by ACS GCI since the spring 2010 ConfChem online conference. ACS GCI has been working closely with the textbook team and educators in the green chemistry community during 2011 to more extensively incorporate green chemistry into the 13th edition of the Pearson textbook Chemistry for Changing Times, a textbook for nonscience majors.1 Compared to previous editions, the 13th edition will not just include green chemistry essays in each chapter of the book, but also will integrate green chemistry into each chapter’s learning objectives, end of chapter summary, and end of chapter questions. Besides the more traditional textbook approach to teaching, the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable has produced several electronic tools that can be used in teaching green chemistry in the classroom and laboratory, as well as by researchers.2 Tools released in 2011 include (i) Solvent Selection Guide, (ii) Process Mass Intensity Calculation Tool, and (iii) Green Chemistry Reporting Requirements for Electronic Laboratory Notebook. These tools can be used to teach about the health, safety, and environmental effects of solvents and about calculating process mass intensity, e-factor, and atom economy, which are important calculations for quantifying the efficiency or wastefulness of chemical reactions. Another online resource that can be useful in teaching is ACS Webinars, which can be viewed live or as a recording after the © 2013 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: January 14, 2013 513
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed2007263 | J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90, 513−514
Journal of Chemical Education
Communication
(7) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/doxsee (accessed Nov 2012). (8) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/green-medicine (accessed Nov 2012). (9) ACS Professional Education. http://www.proed.acs.org/ (accessed Nov 2012). (10) ACS Green Chemistry Institute. http://www.acs.org/ greenchemistry (accessed Nov 2012). (11) Jiménez-González.; et al. Org. Process Res. Dev. 2011, 15 (4), 900−911. (12) Green Nanotechnology Challenges and Opportunities. http:// portal.acs.org/portal/PublicWebSite/greenchemistry/CNBP_027847 (accessed Nov 2012).
Introductory and 201 Advanced Green Chemistry) for professionals working in the chemical enterprise was also introduced in 2011, with registration and information available through ACS Professional Education.9 Besides the other student awards offered annually (see Supporting Information), ACS GCI began offering a new annual student award in 2010 called the Ciba Travel Award in Green Chemistry, supported by the Ciba Green Chemistry Student Endowment.10 The award sponsors the participation of students (high school, undergraduate, and graduate students residing within the United States) in an American Chemical Society technical meeting, conference, or training program, having a significant green chemistry or sustainability component. In the first year, four students (one undergraduate and three graduate students) were awarded. Also new for 2012 is a research grant by the ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable, offered to public and private institutions of higher education worldwide, targeted specifically at green engineering research areas. Ten green engineering research areas were identified and published,11 and the top five of these topics were targeted for grant applications: (i) continuous processes, (ii) bioprocesses, (iii) separation and reaction technologies, (iv) solvent selection, reactions, and optimization, and (v) process intensification. Previous grants had been more focused on chemical transformations rather than green engineering. And last, ACS GCI published a white paper on “Green Nanotechnology Challenges and Opportunities” in 2011, in partnership with the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Intitute.12 The paper analyzes and summarizes the most important opportunities for green nanotechnology and can educate students, researchers, industry, and government on the research and policy needs in this developing field. The paper “Educational Resources from the ACS Green Chemistry Institute,” was discussed from May 14 to May 20 during the spring 2010 ConfChem online conference, Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry. ConfChem conferences are hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE), are open to the public, and can be accessed at the CCCE Web site, http://www.ccce.divched.org/.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information *
Full paper from the ConfChem conference. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) Hill, J. W.; McCreary, T. W.; Kolb, D. K. Chemistry for Changing Times, 13th ed.; Pearson: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2011. (2) ACS GCI Pharmaceutical Roundtable. http://www.acs.org/ gcipharmaroundtable (accessed Nov 2012). (3) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/barr (accessed Nov 2012). (4) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/denison (accessed Nov 2012). (5) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/leger (accessed Nov 2012). (6) Webinar. http://acswebinars.org/heben (accessed Nov 2012). 514
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