Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education

Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education

Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education

Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education

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Overview

Educating the next generation of chemists about green chemistry issues, such as waste minimisation and clean synthesis, is vital for environmental sustainability. This book enables green issues to be taught from the underlying principles of all chemistry courses rather than in isolation.

Chapters contributed by green chemistry experts from across the globe, with experience in teaching at different academic levels, provide a coherent overview of possible approaches to incorporate green chemistry into existing curriculums. Split into three sections, the book first introduces sustainability and green chemistry education , before focussing on high school green chemistry education initiatives and green chemistry education at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. Useful laboratory experiments and in-class activities to aid teaching are included.

This book is a valuable resource for chemical educators worldwide who wish to integrate green chemistry into chemical education in a systematic and holistic way. It is also of interest to anyone wanting to learn more about the different approaches adopted around the world in sustainability education.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781849739498
Publisher: RSC
Publication date: 06/23/2015
Pages: 329
Product dimensions: 6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

James H Clark is Professor of Chemistry at the University of York, Director of the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, and a Director of the Biorenewables Development Centre, UK. He has been at the forefront of green chemistry worldwide for nearly 20 years.

Peter Rudolf Seidl - Professor, Graduate Program on Technology of Chemical and Biochemical Processes, EQ/UFRJ (TPQB/EQ/UFRJ), and responsible for the establishment of the Brazilian Green Chemical School (EBQV). Thesis advisor and project coordinator in physical organic chemistry applied to chemical process areas such as petroleum, pharmaceuticals, mineral technology, etc., publishing widely in these areas and holding an international patent on the use of cashew wastes as a raw material. Former President of the Brazilian Chemical Association (ABQ) and active in the organization of meetings and workshops, such as the 1st International Conference on Chemistry of the Amazon (held shortly after Rio 92) and, more recently, the 1st Workshop on Asphaltenes Characterization and Properties held in 2009 and Biorefineries 2010 Recent Advances and New Challenges, held last November.

Read an Excerpt

Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education


By Vânia Gomes Zuin, Liliana Mammino

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Copyright © 2015 The Royal Society of Chemistry
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84973-949-8



CHAPTER 1

A Great Challenge of Green Chemistry Education: The Interface between Provision of Information and Behaviour Patterns

LILIANA MAMMINO


1.1 Introduction

Green chemistry aims at promoting environmentally benign patterns, a change that is essential for development to be sustainable. In line with the nature of chemistry as the science of substances, green chemistry is concerned with all the stages of the 'life' of a substance or a material: production, utilization and final disposal. For the production stage, green chemistry aims at designing inherently safer substances and less-polluting manufacturing processes. Pursuing these objectives falls within the technical domain of the design of substances and processes and, therefore, it concerns chemistry research and the chemical industry. After the production stages, the rest of the life of substances and materials is in the hands of those who use them. Fostering informed and sustainable ways of handling them relies solely on education. Thus, green chemistry education needs to provide chemistry information in such a way that it may influence people's behaviour.

The importance of green chemistry education has been recognized since the birth of green chemistry. Early recommendations already stressed the need for it to be 'both inside and outside academia'. The last decade has witnessed enormous growth in approaches, projects and resource materials aimed at familiarizing pupils and students with the principles of green chemistry and with a variety of new, green industrial approaches. Their number is too high for a meaningful review within the space of a chapter. Several initiatives have also had an impact on behaviour patterns within specific communities (for instance, progressive greening of university campuses in some contexts). However, the extent to which the new messages have reached the general public, or have impacted on large- scale behaviour patterns, is still inadequate. This makes the interface between the provision of information and the actual promotion of sustainable behaviour patterns one of the major challenges currently facing green chemistry education. Meeting this challenge requires novelties in the educational approaches, with the objective of integrating the provision of information with a stimulation of awareness capable of influencing attitudes and behaviour patterns. The fundamental role of the provision of information goes hand in hand with the importance of stressing the meaning and role of chemistry. The main criteria in the design of educational (or dissemination-of-information) approaches may imply diverse aspects such as:

• Stressing the fundamental message that the handling of substances in everyday life is part of the broad domain of chemistry and, therefore, chemistry information is essential for proper handling, and green chemistry criteria apply to it. Recommendations concerning substances and materials (such as those written on their containers) are chemistry-based and, because of this, they need to be taken into account carefully, to ensure appropriate usage and appropriate disposal once they have finished their useful period.

• Efficiently highlighting the interplay between the two conceptual categories of 'general' and 'particular': the general (global) perspective of the environmental impact of certain actions and the particular perspective of the choices by individual persons or individual communities.

• Enabling sufficiently ample interfaces with ethics education, so as to provide motivations for sustainable behaviour patterns. This is an important pathway for trying to answer the often unspoken question of why an individual should care about what happens globally or what will happen in the future.

• Devoting attention to observable behaviour patterns. This implies observation of what occurs in one's surroundings, reflections on what is observed, and the design of approaches to foster the replacement of observed non-sustainable aspects with more sustainable ones.

The chapter considers concrete examples within both formal and informal education. The examples for formal education refer to efforts to integrate both industrial and everyday life green chemistry perspectives within chemical education, and are analysed in some detail. They comprise the integration of green chemistry perspectives into a process technology course at the University of Venda (South Africa), and the presentation of the interface between chemistry and ethics to secondary school pupils in Italy. The examples for which informal education needs to play extensive roles focus mostly on aspects for which the outreach to the public appears so far inadequate, and make extensive references to observations that can be made in one's surroundings. These examples suggest the importance of fostering chemical literacy and integrating green chemistry perspectives into information to the public. Some possible chemistry-oriented outreach options are outlined.

1.2 Green Chemistry Perspectives in a Process Technology Course

Green chemistry information and perspectives have been introduced for several years into the process technology course taught by the author at the University of Venda (UNIVEN). The context is an underprivileged one (what in South Africa is called a Historically Black University, HBU). Despite recent improvements in several respects, there are still difficulties related to the past (apartheid period) lower status of the university. Furthermore, the university mostly serves a poor rural community, which implies many of the disadvantages common to underprivileged communities. Students experience a variety of difficulties: general underpreparedness, difficulties related to poor language mastery and to the communication challenges typical of second language instruction; and the overall scarcity of learning skills and acquired mastery of essential learning tools, which goes under the comprehensive concept of inadequate epistemological access. This ensemble of problems cumulatively results in generalized passive attitudes and a strong tendency to equate learning to passive memorization, both of which are also deeply rooted in the approaches of pre-university instruction.

The process technology course is a third year course providing the bases of chemical engineering. It has been considered the most apt course for the incorporation of green chemistry perspectives both for its content (directly related to the chemical industry) and because it is apt for explorative or pilot interventions, as it is not a large-enrolment course. The incorporation is realized in such a way as to engage students actively, which is considered essential for the acquired information to have an impact beyond the preparation of tests and exams. The practical approach is conceptually simple. It focuses on the twelve principles of green chemistry. Students are invited to choose a principle (a different principle for each student) and to prepare a poster or a Power-Point presentation considering both industrial and everyday life implications of that principle. There are sessions during the semester, in which students can discuss the progress in the preparation of their presentation and ask for suggestions, so that guidance is provided for all the steps preceding the presentation. The posters are prepared individually, but the discussion sessions are common, to favour interchanges not only about practical challenges, but also about the content on which each students is working. The posters are presented at the end of the semester and are objects of assessment.

The overall approach has several advantages. It engages students actively, as they need to search for information, to design how to organize it and how to present it, and to be able to answer questions on it, after presenting. The request that they consider both industry and everyday life broadens the overall perspective and facilitates the recognition of parallelisms between the significance of the green chemistry principles for the industry and for everyday life.

The initiative has been implemented through the last ten years. In the UNIVEN context, it is so far the first occasion in which chemistry students encounter green chemistry. The impact has been different in different years (with different groups of students). In general, it has stimulated reflections on the relationships between chemistry knowledge and everyday handling of substances and materials and on the importance of considering the impacts of our actions on the environment. In some cases, the impact on students' perceptions and attitudes has gone beyond the recognition of the importance of these aspects, motivating students to search for ways to disseminate information beyond the campus, to the community and to younger (pre-university) pupils. It is interesting to note that this type of interest and commitment beyond the requirements of the course (i.e., beyond doing a certain activity in order to pass the course) is perceived as something pertaining to the fact that they are (or are in the process of becoming) chemists. This is an important and desirable effect, as it links chemistry knowledge to sustainable behaviour and to a perception of a chemist's individual responsibility not only to comply with sustainable-behaviour criteria, but also to promote this attitude in their community.


1.3 Relating Ethics and Chemistry with Secondary School Pupils

An experience at presenting green chemistry to young pupils in the framework of the relationships between chemistry and ethics proved particularly successful. The school concerned was a Scientific Lyceum in Treviso (Italy), and the initiative involved senior pupils (16–19 years age). The overall initiative was a one-day conference on chemistry and ethics, titled Ethics and Chemistry: a Feasible Dialogue. It was organized by the chemistry teacher (Prof. Michele Zanata, assisted by the students themselves), and involved the participation of speakers from different backgrounds and countries, including academics (both chemists and a philosopher), representatives of chemists' professional associations and representatives from the industry. This enabled the consideration of the relationships between ethics and chemistry from a variety of diverse perspectives.

The author of this chapter contributed with a presentation titled 'Ethics and chemistry: the choices of research and the choices of citizens'. The title aimed at immediately highlighting the importance of two major conditions to enhance sustainability: chemical research, which can provide better substances and better processes; and citizens' behaviour, which determines other relevant aspects. The presentation itself aimed at stimulating awareness of the two essential aspects of ethical behaviour — wanting to do what is good and knowing how to do it — and of the implications with regard to chemistry and to the production and use of substances and materials. These included the importance of chemical (and science) literacy to be able to make informed choices (knowing how to do good), and the importance of individual behaviours for global effects (a reason for wanting to do good). After an extensive introduction on the nature and purposes of green chemistry (including the presentation of its ten principles), the presentation focused on the sources of pollution (something in which pupils were specifically interested) and on the importance of choosing sustainable behaviour patterns. A number of images of environmental pollution were selected and combined with captions aimed at stimulating reflection, by conveying the main message in an expectedly impressive way. The major message was that pollution is not generated only by the industry, but also by the overall effect of the behaviour of a high number of individual persons. The selected images had the following subjects:

• A river polluted by industrial wastes

• A factory emitting huge clouds of black smokes from its chimneys

• An oil spill from an oil tanker

• A traffic jam, with a panoramic of a huge number of cars queuing from different directions at a cross-roads

• A river polluted by detergents

• An 'island' of plastic bags in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The captions for the first three images were 'This is due to industry'; the captions for the last three images were 'This is due to the choices of many normal citizens' (fourth image), 'This is due to the activities of many normal citizens' (fifth image) and 'This is due to the carelessness of many normal citizens' (sixth image). The aim was that of conveying the message that chemistry research can do something (hopefully a lot) to make industry more sustainable; but citizens also need to take responsibility for the ways in which they handle substances and materials.

The pupils' response was very positive. They showed active interest and asked many questions both in the question time after the presentation and informally later on. Several questions focused on chemical aspects ('What happens if ...?'), showing that the main messages had gone through. Questions asked informally, after the sessions, showed pupils' remarkable prior exposure to the issue of chemistry and the environment: their chemistry teacher had put considerable efforts in this direction, stimulating curiosity and reflections as part of their overall attitude. The information on green chemistry added the information that it is possible to use chemistry to protect the environment, and also conveyed the message that a lot of research is still needed, and that sustainable behaviour is an ethical issue requiring adequate chemistry literacy to be pursued effectively. The general theme of the conference stressed the importance of cross-discipline and holistic thinking, a key contribution to the pupils' overall formation. A presentation of green chemistry within such a perspective is particularly suitable because it highlights a variety of cross-discipline aspects and their significance for sustainable behaviour patterns.


1.4 From Observations to Design: The Route to Effective Educational Approaches

1.4.1 Observation, Reflection and Design

Educational approaches need to be designed on the basis of observations and diagnoses, to respond more effectively to the characteristics of the target groups. This is true both for formal instruction (where the target groups are pupils or students) and for informal education (where the target groups may be specific groups of persons, or entire communities). When educational approaches, or approaches aimed at disseminating information, are meant for the general public, it is important to take into account existing attitudes and behaviours as the starting point.

Informal education is not delegated only to persons who are 'officially' in charge of it. Each person can make a number of observations/diagnoses by devoting careful attention to the surroundings, considering one's own choices and the choices of the persons around. Observations lead to reflections. Reflections provide the basis to design approaches, which can be implemented through direct communication (e.g., talking between individual persons), or through inclusion into educational approaches and material development, if one is engaged in education. Two components are particularly important in such processes:

• The consideration that, in most cases, environmentally unfriendly choices are based on inadequate information, or inadequate awareness of the importance of the choices of each person

• The importance of underpinning any recommendation or suggestion on sound scientific information.

Many people still tend to consider that those who talk about the environment have mostly aesthetic and emotional motivations (liking nature as it is, loving trees, forests, and animals, or other similar reasons). These motivations, although important for those who perceive them, do not have a sufficiently significant impact on others, when communicated as such. Only scientific information can stimulate the awareness that environmental issues are important for our health, for the general economy in our society and for the wellbeing of the future generations. The relevant scientific information has mostly a chemical core, although significant interfacing contributions may come from mathematics, biology, medicine, economics, and other disciplines. A number of basic examples important for everyday life will be briefly considered in the next subsections, to highlight how chemistry information can be incorporated as the scientific basis to stimulate changes in behaviour patterns. The selection of the examples, and of the corresponding suggestions, is based on direct experience in different contexts. Therefore, the themes of the examples are not treated in an exhaustive way (what would require much more space than that of a chapter), but as a rather fast overview of possibilities.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Worldwide Trends in Green Chemistry Education by Vânia Gomes Zuin, Liliana Mammino. Copyright © 2015 The Royal Society of Chemistry. Excerpted by permission of The Royal Society of Chemistry.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

The Interface Between Provision of Information and Behaviour Patterns; Education for Sustainable Development and Chemistry Education; Rio+20 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Green Chemistry; Green Chemistry in Response to Environmental Issues: Socio-scientific Dilemmas in Science Education; Green Chemistry in Brazil: Contemporary Tendencies and Challenges and its Reflections on High School Level; Collaborative Development of a Green High School Chemistry Curriculum in Thailand; Green Chemistry as a Guiding Idea for Innovation in the Informal Student Laboratory; Small Scale Green Chemistry in Higher Education in Thailand; Teaching Catalyst Mechanisms for Converting Biomass into Liquid Fuels; Holistic Green Chemistry Metrics for use in Teaching Laboratories; Embedding Toxicology into the Chemistry Curriculum; the State of Green Chemistry Instruction at Canadian Universityies; Education in Green Chemistry: Incorporating Green Chemistry in Chemistry Teaching Methods Course at the Universityi Sains Malaysia; Educational Efforts in Green and Sustainable Chemistry from the Spanish Network in Sustainable Chemistry; Green Chemistry and Sustainable Industrial Technology: 10 Years of an MSc Program; Introducing Green Chemistry (from a Brazilian Perspective) into Graduate Courses.
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