By David Laviska, Portfolio Manager for Green Chemistry and Sustainability in Education, ACS Green Chemistry Institute
Attention all ACS Student Chapters, chapter advisors, and affiliated people/groups! New guidance is being developed at the ACS Green Chemistry Institute, in conjunction with ACS Division of Membership and Student Communities, that will support chapter activities that focus on green and sustainable chemistry. Over the past several years, more students and student chapters have been contacting ACS offices to ask for specific guidance on how they can increase their efforts toward learning about (and teaching others about) the principles of Green Chemistry. Many student chapters are interested in applying for the “Green Chemistry Distinction” – a special award acknowledgement given during the annual Student Chapter Awards Ceremony held every year at the Spring National Meeting of the ACS. Additionally, we observe that more and more students understand the relevance and importance of keeping Green Chemistry central to their learning, career training, and student organization activities. This is cause for celebration!
In an effort to answer student questions and provide detailed descriptions of activities that enrich student knowledge and adhere closely to the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry, the ACS will provide targeted guidance in the form of “laboratory-type” experiments that illustrate both green chemistry principles and their relevance to fundamental chemistry concepts that all students who take general and organic chemistry should know (or will learn as part of their required degree curriculum). The experiments will involve benign, non-toxic reagents and simple materials/equipment that are widely available at low cost. (They won’t need to be completed in the confines of a laboratory, either!) The chemistry concepts addressed in the experiments will be easy to understand and provide a clear mechanism for students to connect them to the principles of green chemistry and larger global sustainability issues. Student chapters will be given a variety of options for completing activities that satisfy the requirements for the Green Chemistry Distinction, thereby guaranteeing they will qualify for the award if they follow the instructions carefully. Learning goals and outcomes will be explicit, and ACS will expect specific feedback in the annual student chapter reporting process.
This new initiative will roll out in stages according to the following timeline:
Spring 2025: Pilot phase. A limited number of ACS Student Chapters will be contacted and asked to participate in this project. One experiment will be sent to the selected chapters (everyone receiving the same guidance) and students will follow the guidance embedded in the instructions document.
May/June 2025: Feedback. Targeted feedback will be collected from the student chapters involved in the Pilot phase.
Summer 2025: Revisions and expansion. ACS will review collected feedback to improve guidance as needed and expand the portfolio of experiments to include a selection that will be made available for academic year 2025-26.
Fall 2025: Full scale project launch. Starting in Fall 2025, all interested Student Chapters will be able to select one or more experimental protocols for use at their home institutions.
Keep an eye out for additional updates concerning this exciting new initiative here on The Nexus blog as well as through additional ACS communication channels. If your Student Chapter wants to be part of the conversation, please email us at gci@acs.org. We will be happy to add you to the list of invited chapters for the full-scale roll-out in the Fall. We are excited to hear your feedback and look forward to seeing how much we can work together to propagate Green Chemistry throughout your activities!