Resumen de ConfChem Conference on Educating the Next Generation: Green and Sustainable Chemistry-Chemistry of Sustainability: A General Education Science Course Enhancing Students, Faculty and Institutional Programming
Julie A. Haack, J. Andrew Berglund, James E. Hutchison, Darren W. Johnson, Mark C. Lonergan, David R. Tyler
This paper describes a collaborative project to design and teach a general education science course, Chemistry of Sustainability. Our goal was to show how chemistry plays a central role in addressing the grand challenges of protecting the environment and human health by developing the knowledge and tools that meet our basic needs for energy, clean water, and consumer products. Course content was designed using a case-study approach that illustrates how basic chemical concepts including atomic structure, bonding, intermolecular forces, and reactivity are applied to address environmental issues. The cases tapped faculty research expertise and addressed topics such as renewable energy, sustainable consumer products, bioplastics, clean water, and nanoscience. Because sustainability is an interdisciplinary activity, we illustrated how life-cycle assessment and the principles of green chemistry can be used to provide sustainable chemical solutions. A surprising outcome of this project was the breadth and significance of the impacts on our students, faculty, and institution. 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).
