Note Special Time:

4:00 P.M. EDT

3:00 CDT

1:00 PDT

Abstract: Students on campuses around the world are expressing a strong interest in sustainability, and are often frustrated by the lack of knowledge and intellectual tools available to facilitate decision-making and innovation in this area. At the same time, employers are seeking employees with greater familiarity with sustainable innovation. Educators realize that sustainable chemical innovation is complex and requires a broad and sophisticated mix of approaches and educational strategies. Green chemistry offers an important set of design principles that successfully fuels sustainable innovation.

To date, green chemistry education has been targeted at chemistry courses, in particular organic and general chemistry labs (1-4). At the University of Oregon, we have been exploring the integration of green chemistry across the university curriculum as a way to drive innovation by clarifying the connections between societal needs and chemical solutions. As the audience for green chemistry expands beyond the traditional chemistry curriculum, educators will be challenged to design innovative educational materials that meet the growing demand for knowledge and intellectual tools to address sustainable development. During this presentation I will describe what we have learned from infusing green chemistry into the general science curriculum for non-science majors and into professional courses including product design, architecture and journalism and communications (5). I will describe the exciting opportunities and challenges associated with this work and also highlight some of the emerging design strategies that are proving catalytic in developing new educational materials to meet the emerging demand.

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Abstract:  Green chemistry, the design of chemical products and processes to eliminate hazards to human health and the environment, provides unique opportunities for innovation in academia and industry. Chemistry educators realize that sustainable chemical innovation is complex and requires a broad and sophisticated mix of approaches and educational strategies. In order to meet the growing needs of society, current approaches to chemical design and processing must be transformed and education has the potential to significantly accelerate this transformation.

Over the past 20 years there have been considerable advances toward infusing green chemistry into undergraduate and graduate curricula with the goal of preparing future generations of chemists to practice greener chemistry.  New generations of educational materials have been developed, textbooks have been (re) written, hundreds of colleges and universities have introduced green chemistry into their curricula, and tens of thousands of students are learning about the principles and practice of green chemistry.

As these changes have been introduced, we’ve also learned more about the challenges that green chemists will face in the future.  They will need to work in a widely interdisciplinary setting on complex chemical design challenges in the context of a global economy.  They will need new skills and tools to implement the core principles of green chemistry.

In this presentation we will describe the value of green chemistry to society and within education, provide an overview of the diverse collection of materials available to assist educators in infusing green chemistry principles within higher education, and offer targeted strategies for introducing green chemistry across the curriculum.