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Getting to the Core of Green Chemistry Education

ACSGCI
Honored Contributor
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Contributed by Dawn Holt, Project Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute®

The momentum continues.  Over the past year you’ve heard us talk about the chartering and development of the Green Chemistry Education Roadmap.  We’ve assembled sessions at our GC&E Conference, held a visioning workshop, hosted an Ask the Innovators event, and more to keep you informed and engaged.  Our next effort includes involving the community to provide feedback on the vision and core competencies of the Roadmap.

The crux of the Green Chemistry Education Roadmap is the development of its core competencies.  The Green Chemistry Core Competencies are the bridge connecting the vision of the roadmap and actionable goals to equip college graduates with green chemistry knowledge, skills and attitudes following completion of a chemistry, chemical engineering, or allied sciences degree.  In an effort to achieve our shared vision where green chemistry is routine chemistry practice, we need your help in providing feedback regarding the four core competencies (below).

Green Chemistry Education Core Competencies:

  1. Graduates will be able to design and/or select chemicals that improve product and sustainability (societal/human, environmental and economic) performance from a life cycle perspective.
  2. Graduates will be able to design and/or select chemical processes that are highly efficient, that take advantage of alternative feedstocks, and that do so while generating the least amount of waste.
  3. Graduates will understand how chemicals can be used/integrated into products to achieve the best benefit to customers while minimizing life cycle sustainability impacts.
  4. Graduates will be able to think about and make decisions taking into account life cycle thinking and systems analysis.

We would like to hear from you about the core competencies. Are any competencies missing and/or should any competencies be eliminated?  Are there any specific changes that should be made in order to clarify the competencies and/or focus their content?

In particular, we would like your suggestions for how each may be improved in order to better serve its function within the roadmap. To learn more about the Roadmap and the core competencies, visit here.  To provide us feedback, visit our online survey.  We look forward to hearing from soon.

“The Nexus Blog” is a sister publication of “The Nexus” newsletter. To sign up for the newsletter, please email gci@acs.org, or if you have an ACS ID, login to your email preferences and select “The Nexus” to subscribe.

To read other posts, go to Green Chemistry: The Nexus Blog home.