Editorial pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Telling Time: Chemistry Education in the Anthropocene Epoch Peter G. Mahaffy* Department of Chemistry, The King’s University College, Edmonton, Alberta T6B2H3 Canada ABSTRACT: An International Union of Geological Sciences working group is expected to soon formalize a determination that we have moved from the Holocene to the Anthropocene Epoch on the geologic time scale. In addition to reaching consensus on the scientific evidence for this change, this initiative is meant to raise awareness in other scientific communities of the effects of largescale human activity on fundamental earth system parameters. In parallel, work is being done to understand the resiliency of our planet to the large human footprint, and to define and quantify the planetary boundaries that define a safe operating space for humanity. Many of these planetary boundaries are quantified by chemical measurements. We explore the implications of these parallel developments for chemistry educators. KEYWORDS: General Public, First-Year Undergraduate/General, High School/Introductory Chemistry, Curriculum, Environmental Chemistry, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary, Public Understanding/Outreach, Applications of Chemistry, Geochemistry, Green Chemistry
■
TELLING TIME
Working Group on the Anthropocene is expected to report by 2016. It seems almost certain that a recommendation that we are officially in a new epoch will be formalized and communicated to other professional scientific communities. Most of the intrigue seems to revolve around the question of when the Anthropocene Epoch should formally be considered as having begun. What is the Anthropocene Epoch, and why should chemistry educators care what time it is on our planet’s geologic time scale? The term “anthropocene” (Greek “anthropo-”, human; and “-cene”, new) was coined by ecologist Eugene Stoermer and popularized by chemist and Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to emphasize the scale of the human footprint (Figure 1) on the chemistry, biology, and geology of earth’s life support systems.3 Formal scientific consensus that we have crossed the boundary from the Holocene to the Anthropocene Epoch would be an acknowledgment of a monumental global transformation, of the sort that was seen when dinosaurs became extinct. With the vantage of hindsight, future civilizations, including chemists, would look back at this boundary and see clearly that the planet was fundamentally and measurably transformed as the new epoch began.4 Much of the evidence for having moved to a new epoch defined by human activity comes from measurements and insights from chemistry at its interfaces with earth, atmospheric, and marine sciences.5 Chemists provide chronometers that tell how times are changing through measurements of the following:
A compelling story about telling time, with monumental implications for the teaching and learning of chemistry, is being written by our professional colleagues in the earth sciences. The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy of the International Commission on Stratigraphy of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) (an even bigger nomenclature mouthful than IUPAC), has appointed a working group to advise on whether sufficient scientific evidence is present to formally declare the “Anthropocene Epoch” as an appropriate chronological term on the geologic time scale to describe our planet’s current place in time.1,2 The IUGS blue-ribbon
Figure 1. Thermal infrared image of human footprints. Visualizing and quantifying the transfer of heat from a student’s body to the surroundings also serves as a visual metaphor for seeing and understanding the human imprint on our planet that now defines our place in geologic time. © 2014 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
• Stratospheric ozone levels Published: April 8, 2014 463
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed5001922 | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 463−465
Journal of Chemical Education
Editorial
Table 1. Examples of Mapping Planetary Boundaries to Relevant Chemistry Concepts Planetary Boundary Climate Change Ocean Acidification Stratospheric Ozone Depletion Nitrogen and Phosphorus Biogeochemical Cycles Global Freshwater Use Atmospheric Aerosol Loading
Examples of Underlying Chemistry Concepts Interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter; infrared spectroscopy; thermochemistry; aerosols; isotopes; states of matter; combustion reactions; stoichiometry; hydrocarbons; carbohydrates Acid−base chemistry; equilibria; solubility; chemistry in and of water; chemical speciation; stoichiometry; models Photochemistry; interaction of electromagnetic radiation with matter; ultraviolet spectroscopy; free-radical reactions; reaction mechanisms; thermochemistry; kinetics Main group chemistry; chemical speciation; stoichiometry; atom economy and atom efficiency; thermochemistry; kinetics Chemistry in and of water; chemical speciation; solubility and precipitation; equilibria; states of matter States of matter and phase changes; thermochemistry; acid−base chemistry
• Ratios of isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in substances such as water • The rate of release of methane from methane clathrate hydrates found off of continental ocean shelves and in arctic tundra • Increasing acidity and declining carbonate ion concentrations in our oceans • Unprecedented rates of changes in concentrations of trace atmospheric greenhouse gases and aerosols, and in the amount of snow and ice cover that together regulate our planetary thermostat • Substantial changes in speciation in planetary cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus • The emerging critical status due to the scale of mining from the earth’s crust of some of the key rare earth elements that make possible modern electronics and alternative energy technologies used in devices such as wind turbines and hybrid cars These and other parameters inform consideration of the most appropriate starting point of the Anthropocene, when the scale of human impact first became indisputably important and evident.6,7 Perhaps the leading candidate is the beginning of the Industrial Revolution; others include the beginning of agriculture and the nuclear age.
human activity since the Industrial Revolution, aided by those very developments in chemistry, has so fundamentally changed the chemistry of planet Earth that it has defined a new geological epoch.
■
ANTHROPOCENE-AWARE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF CHEMISTRY With awareness of the reality of the planet-scale influence of our species comes responsibility by educators to communicate, over educational levels and across disciplines, fundamental ideas about the fit between humans and our habitat. What might be some of the ways chemistry educators could use data from chemical chronometers, along with an understanding of planetary boundaries, to meaningfully connect to chemistry curriculum, and help equip our students and the public to take informed actions as citizens? Just a few examples of how six of the planetary boundaries could be mapped to underlying chemistry concepts are shown in Table 1. One NSF-funded exemplar, Visualizing the Chemistry of Climate Change,9 uses rich contexts from climate science to introduce a set of topics in general chemistry, and to measure student learning gains of both chemistry and climate science concepts. Another set of interactive resources, created for the International Year of Chemistry,10 develops an understanding of the chemistry concepts underlying many of the planetary boundaries listed above, and forms the basis of contexts used to introduce several topics in a general chemistry textbook.11
■
CHEMISTRY’S ROLE IN DEFINING OUR PLANETARY BOUNDARIES As we consider whether, and when, we have crossed from the Holocene to the Anthropocene Epoch, we need to be aware of research to understand the resiliency of our planet to the largescale changes resulting from human activity. The term “planetary boundaries” has been introduced to define and quantify parameters derived from careful scientific measurement and analysis of the state of earth systems that define a safe operating space for humanity. When first reading the key paper describing this work in Nature in 2009,8 I was struck both by the remarkable correspondence between the chemistry underlying many of the planetary boundaries with topics covered in most introductory postsecondary chemistry course outlines, and the lack of awareness of discussions about planetary boundaries in chemistry education circles. The naming of a new geological epoch as the Anthropocene, in parallel with analysis of our planetary boundaries, draws sharp attention to the myriad of ways in which human activity involves fundamental chemistry. Earth Day this year, along with this environmentally themed issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, provides us an opportunity to consider the paradoxical ways in which chemistry has affected (usually for the better) virtually every aspect of human life, while at the same time comprehending that the scale and nature of modern
■
EDUCATIONAL TIPPING POINTS AND FEEDBACK LOOPS Times have always changed on our planet: 17,000 years ago, the desk in Northern Alberta where I am writing this editorial would have been buried under massive sheets of glacial ice. It took about 7000 years to emerge from that ice age to the stable and warm Holocene period that has supported human life so comfortably. By contrast, the rate of change of earth system parameters over the past 200 years has been much more rapid. Investigating and responding to this rapid, largely anthropogenic change has led to the recent appearance in our sister professional societies of new disciplinary and interdisciplinary scientific journals with “anthropocene” in their titles, and discussions are beginning about how to incorporate education about the Anthropocene Epoch into K−12 curricula. Elementary students informed about the Anthropocene will soon populate chemistry courses at the secondary and postsecondary level. Yet, chemistry educators have not systematically engaged with the importance of telling time on this scale while teaching. A global search for the term “anthropocene” in titles and abstracts of the Journal of Chemical Education turns up zero hits. Can awareness of those changing planetary times bring about a tipping point in our chemistry 464
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed5001922 | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 463−465
Journal of Chemical Education
Editorial
(10) Mahaffy, P.; Martin, B. E.; Schwalfenberg, A.; Vandenbrink, D.; Eymundson, D. ConfChem Conference on a Virtual Colloquium To Sustain and Celebrate IYC 2011 Initiatives in Global Chemical Education: Visualizing and Understanding the Science of Climate Change. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (11), 1552−1553. (11) Mahaffy, P.; Bucat, B.; Tasker, R.; Kotz, J.; Treichel, P.; Weaver, G.; McMurry, J. Chemistry: Human Activity, Chemical Reactivity, 2nd ed.; Nelson: Toronto, 2014; Chapters 4, 13, 15, 19, 26. (12) Andrew Revkin, quoted by Stromberg, J. In What Is the Anthropocene and Are We in It? Smithsonian Magazine 2013; http:// www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/What-is-theAnthropocene-and-Are-We-in-It-183828201.html#ixzz2liqVbpaz (accessed Mar 2014).
courses and public understanding of chemistry initiatives? A tipping point that creates a feedback loop in which Anthropocene-aware chemistry education plays a meaningful role in informing responsible action to mitigate the effects of human activity on our planetary boundaries? Consider this:12 Two billion years ago, cyanobacteria oxygenated the atmosphere and powerfully disrupted life on earth.... But they didn’t know it. We’re the first species that’s become a planet-scale influence and is aware of that reality. Awareness of the chemical chronometer measurements of planet-scale changes due to the influence of our species brings responsibilities by chemistry educators to our students, to future generations, and to our planet. Can the work of professional colleagues in the geological sciences on defining our place in geological time serve as a catalyst to move chemistry curriculum over a steep activation barrier toward approaches that weave together learning about fundamentals of chemical substances and their reactions with the understanding of our planetary boundaries needed for chemistry-informed responsible actions by scientists and citizens? We are in the professional business of equipping students and the public to make sense of our world by providing education in, about, and through chemistry. Let us do so knowing what time it is.
■
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail: peter.mahaff
[email protected]. Notes
Peter Mahaffy conducts research in chemistry education and scientific visualization. He is past-chair of IUPAC's Committee on Chemistry Education. Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
■
REFERENCES
(1) Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, Working Group on the “Anthropocene”. http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/ workinggroups/anthropocene/ (accessed Mar 2014). (2) Zalasiewicz, J.; Williams, M.; Haywood, A.; Ellis, M. The Anthropocene: A New Epoch of Geological Time? Phil. Trans. R. Soc., A 2011, 369, 835−841. (3) Crutzen, P.; Stoermer, E. F. The “Anthropocene”. Global Change Newsletter of the International Geosphere−Biosphere Programme 2000, 41, 17−18. (4) Steffen, W.; Crutzen, P. J.; McNeill, J. R. The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature? Ambio 2007, 36 (8), 614−621. (5) Williams, J.; Crutzen, P. J. Perspectives on Our Planet in the Anthropocene. Environ. Chem. 2013, 10, 269−280. (6) Steffen, W.; Grinevald, J.; Crutzen, P. J.; McNeill, J. R. The Anthropocene: Conceptual and Historical Perspectives. Phil. Trans. R. Soc., A 2011, 369, 842−867. (7) Gale, S. J.; Hoare, P. G. The Stratigraphic Status of the Anthropocene. The Holocene 2012, 22 (12), 1491−1494. (8) Rockström, J.; Steffen, W.; Noone, K.; Persson, Å.; Chapin, F. S., III; Lambin, E. F.; Lenton, T. M.; Scheffer, M.; Folke, C.; Schellnhuber, H. J.; Nykvist, B.; de Wit, C. A.; Hughes, T.; van der Leeuw, S.; Rodhe, H.; Sörlin, S.; Snyder, P. K.; Costanza, R.; Svedin, U.; Falkenmark, M.; Karlberg, L.; Corell, R. W.; Fabry, V. J.; Hansen, J.; Walker, B.; Liverman, D.; Richardson, K.; Crutzen, P.; Foley, J. A. A Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Nature 2009, 461, 472−475. (9) Mahaffy, P.; Martin, B.; Towns, M.; Kirchhoff, M.; McKenzie, L.; Versprille, A. Visualizing the Chemistry of Climate Change. http:// www.vc3chem.com/ (accessed Mar 2014). 465
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed5001922 | J. Chem. Educ. 2014, 91, 463−465
