At the ACS National Meeting in Dallas, I had a chance to interview several representatives of ACS Student Chapters who were leading green chemistry educational activities at their institutions. Together with my colleague Doug Dollemore and the ACS Ambassadors program, we put together this video which highlights some of the student outreach efforts to get kids involved in sustainability and chemistry. (Also available at: http://youtu.be/WKablXLSaJs ).
Many of these students and their institutions also presented their efforts during the Sci-Mix undergraduate poster session at Dallas. Bellow is the creative tree-themed poster from the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico in Ponce's ACS Student Chapter.
In fact, there were many more students that I didn’t get a chance to interview on video who are working with their peers to highlight green chemistry this Earth Day/Week:
"We will celebrate the 2014 Earth Week with a whole week of activities," says Jose Mercado Adrover, the leader of the ACS Student Chapter's Green Chemistry program at Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. Their activities will include watching and discussing environmental documentaries, doing demonstrations using the Climate Science Toolkit, informing students and public on green chemistry and the water crisis, participating in a community activity planting medicinal trees, and participating in "Festival de la Química" Earth Week Edition in the National Historic Old San Juan.
"On Earth Day we will again have a campus wide green chemistry seminar," says Ronnie Funk from the Erskine College's ACS Student Chapter. In their last—and first—green chemistry seminar, 89 students attended. This time they will focus for the "non-scientist". In addition, Mr. Funk mentions that the are developing a hands-on green chemistry presentation for a non-major general chemistry class, as well as putting up a poster on green chemistry for display in the department hallway.
Congratulations to all these chapters—some of the 74 total who received the Green Chemistry Award for their outreach efforts in the 2012-3013 academic year!
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