This January, a group of motivated educators from across the U.S. and Canada began the process of creating education modules to integrate green and sustainable chemistry (GSC) into general and organic chemistry topics. The effort is part of the ACS GCI Educational Module Development Project—a three-year project aimed at providing the resources and training for undergraduate educators to accelerate the adoption of GSC in the classroom. Fifteen teams have been formed to work on 31+ modules covering topics like equilibrium, electrochemistry, chirality, and synthetic design from a green chemistry and systems thinking perspective. We checked in with one team—Prof. Marta Guron of Villanova University and Prof. Lihua Wang of Kettering University—to hear their vision for and experience with the project thus far.

By Gabriela Gastelu, Ph.D. student at the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, and 2021 Heh-Won Chang Fellow in Green Chemistry

I remember the first time I entered a laboratory as a secondary school student in my home city in Argentina. Its equipment was quite basic; however, I was delighted with all the glass material and the idea of making new things just by mixing components. Yes, I know my idea of a chemist at that time was really simple! But that simple idea inspired me to decide to study chemistry at the university.

By Jenny MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

As we move into our ninth month of social distancing and mask wearing, we look with hope towards the promise of emerging vaccines. We give thanks to the incredible work of teams of scientis

Hey, undergrads! Looking for some green chemistry activities for your ACS Student Chapter? Great news, we’ve got boatloads full of great activities that can even be done virtually. In particular, the green chemistry activities from past ACS Program-in-a-B

By Jenny MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute, and Aurora Ginzburg, Education Specialist, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

Are you passionate about sustainability? Do you teach a foundational lower-division chemistry course? Are you looki

By David Constable, Ph.D., Scientific Director, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

Say you’re in the market for a new article of clothing and you start searching on the internet for what’s available from retailers you have bought from in the past.  Maybe you wa

If you missed any of the fantastic chemistry education sessions at the ACS Green Chemistry Institute’s® 24^th Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Virtual Conference, it’s not too late to go back and review those sessions now.  Several of the technical ses

Edward Brush, Ph.D.

Bridgewater State University

ebrush@bridgew.edu

The world presents us with problems whose complexity and impact we can barely imagine but that we must solve. As educators, our mission is to prepare our students to do exactly that. The in

Due to COVID-19, the Chemists Celebrate Earth Week (CCEW) campaign has gone fully digital with instructions for organizing virtual events and an updated suite of educational resources.

Find a Virtual CCEW Event to participate or learn how to plan your own

By Jenny MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute ®

In the last couple of Nexus newsletters, we have shared information about ACS GCI’s efforts to draw connections between Systems Thinking and Chemistry Education, as well as our efforts to

Although chemistry occurs in systems in nature, most students still learn chemistry in a reductionist manner—looking at the discrete parts without a clear idea how it connects to the whole. Now chemistry educators are starting to integrate the concept of

By Jenny MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS Green Chemistry Institute

Here at ACS GCI, ensuring that the next generation of chemists is educated with a green chemistry perspective is one of our strategic priorities. Over the years, ACS GCI has developed and l

By Christiana Briddell, Sr. Communications Manager, ACS GCI; Jennifer MacKellar, Program Manager, ACS GCI; Marta Gmurczyk, Safety Portfolio Manager, ACS

Today’s environmental headlines are replete with sustainability topics from climate change to plastics

Each year ACS Student Chapters incorporate green chemistry outreach and activities into their programming in order to receive the Green Chemistry Award. The Green Chemistry Student Chapter Award, created eighteen years ago through a collaboration between

By Michelle Muzzio, Graduate Student, Brown University

I never realized how much location could profoundly change an experience until I was walking to class about to learn more about green chemistry from some of the world’s leading experts on the topic, wa