Completing Our Education. Green Chemistry in the Curriculum

Abstract

This Commentary resulted from a series of conversations between an international group of chemistry and chemical engineering graduate students from the 3rd Annual ACS Green Chemistry Summer School, who reflected on their undergraduate education and discussed 1) the areas of green chemistry that were often neglected, 2) the value of integrating green chemistry principles in today's curricula, and 3) strategies educators might use to incorporate green chemistry in their classrooms. We have outlined areas of scientific knowledge that we believe to be of vital importance for the education of future chemists and engineers, as well as graduates of other disciplines including public relations, business, and public policy. Green Chemistry has the potential to recruit innovative and energetic students, repair a damaged public image, and bolster the long-term prosperity of the chemical sector on the domestic and international scale. Instead of eliminating existing courses, we argue that teaching traditional chemist...