Two National Science Foundation grants totaling $635,000 were recently awarded to faculty in the University of Oregon chemistry department to promote long-term efforts to put an environmental face on undergraduate chemistry education. The grants will help further develop an innovative green organic teaching laboratory and fund instrument acquisitions for green extraction and separation chemistry labs.
The green lab is the first instructional laboratory in the world to focus on the fast-emerging field of green organic chemistry. Green chemistry methods seek to reduce the potential for hazard by finding creative ways to minimize human exposure and environmental impact without stifling scientific progress. Students learn the same chemistry taught in traditional organic labs by performing modified experiments using less toxic chemicals to minimize risk to themselves and the environment.
"It's exciting to have the support of the National Science Foundation for this nationally-recognized program," said Julie Haack, Assistant Department Head. "This is clearly a win-win opportunity for both students and the chemical industry."
The curriculum offers a number of lessons not offered in traditional organic labs, says Professor Jim Hutchison, who designed the instructional lab with Professor Ken Doxsee and a team of graduate students. Students become familiar with chemical hazards and how those hazards are quantified, the relevant modes of exposure or release of chemicals, and the methods to be used for safe handling of chemicals with different hazards. "Armed with this information, students can assess hazard rather than assuming all chemicals are 'toxic'," he says.
Hutchison says the lab teaches students to evaluate reaction conditions and find alternative, greener methods. This aspect of the curriculum is especially empowering to students because they realize that armed with this knowledge they can help disseminate better and more sustainable chemical practices in both academic and industrial settings.
"It is essential to achieving sustainability that we educate the next generation of molecular scientists to understand the power they have in designing a safer world," says Paul Anastas, Senior Policy Analyst at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy - and the recognized father of green chemistry.
Educating the next generation to understand responsible chemistry is precisely the long-term goal of green chemistry at Oregon, says Hutchison. The lab is in its third year and has enjoyed rave reviews from students.
"Our generation is faced with a pretty serious environmental crisis that didn't just come about overnight. What we are learning here, and more importantly, how we are learning it, is revolutionary," says senior Adam McCarthy who completed the class last year. The UO plans to turn all organic instructional labs "green" by fall 2001.
The grants are the latest breakthrough in the UO's efforts to incorporate environmental education into the chemistry curriculum. Ongoing projects have already begun to promote environmental responsibility in the general chemistry sequences for undergraduates.
In general chemistry lab, Professor Deborah Exton has long been a proponent of chemistry with an environmental focus, believing that it helps students keep an interest in the subject matter while allowing her to teach responsibly. "Students at the UO tend to be more interested in the environment than students at many other campuses," she says. "Because so many students take general chemistry lab, we can produce huge volumes of waste with traditional experiments," says Exton. To decrease the waste, she has modified and developed experiments that teach appropriate chemistry and minimize waste at the same time. For example, a traditional experiment using copper sulfate has been replaced with one using Kool Aid that can be poured down the drain.
"Students need to learn how to assess the risk and magnitude of chemicals in their environment," says Professor Cathy Page who, along with two other professors, began teaching their general chemistry lectures with an environmental emphasis three years ago. Without a balanced understanding of how chemicals can help and harm, people have a distorted perception of chemistry - and it all looks bad, says Page. But it isn't the chemistry that's bad, it's the misperception of risks associated with various chemicals. "People avoid bologna and hot dogs because of the nitrite preservatives, but they'll smoke cigarettes." Providing students with the knowledge to make their own environmental assessments will allow them to make intelligent choices about the chemicals they encounter in life, she says. With that knowledge they become better citizens and can help promote better policy.
Hutchison hopes to see the UO eventually become a center for green chemistry - and chemistry with an environmental focus. "We all stand to benefit when students take their knowledge of responsible chemistry out into the workforce, whether they end up in the chemical industry or somewhere else," he says. "These students are uniquely qualified to act as green chemical ambassadors when they enter the job market," says Hutchison. They will be better prepared to contribute environmentally-responsible solutions to chemical problems in their careers or in their daily choices as citizens and consumers.
For more information on green chemistry and upcoming workshops at the UO, visit their green chemistry website at http://www.uoregon.edu/~hutchlab/greenchem/