The Need for and Evolution of a Global Community of Practice in Green Chemistry Education
Jonathon Moir, Nimrat K. Obhi, Jennifer MacKellar, David A. Laviska, Amy S. Cannon
Abstract
The community of educators teaching green chemistry in classrooms and laboratories across the United States and globally has grown significantly over the past few decades. However, their efforts to reform chemistry education and include more green and sustainable chemistry concepts have been generally siloed and championed by individual faculty instructors and teachers via grassroots efforts. This article provides a brief history of the green chemistry education movement, highlighting a selection of efforts and approaches taken by individuals and institutions to drive educational change and further integrate green chemistry into education systems worldwide. An analysis is then provided of survey results of ACS members collected in 2020 exploring the importance of green chemistry principles and concepts in education, how prepared faculty feel to teach said concepts, what barriers exist to teaching these concepts, and what mechanisms they felt would best help them overcome said barriers. The connection to communities of practice (CoPs) and communities of transformation (CoTs) as well-documented mechanisms for supporting curricular change and reform in STEM education are then discussed in the context of the green chemistry education community. Finally, we describe the work of community leaders to develop a philosophy statement around green chemistry education, providing a foundational statement of motivation for educators, and discuss the development and launch of the new Green Chemistry Teaching and Learning Community (GCTLC) online platform as a tool to support this growing global community.