Sustainability in Chemistry Degree Programmes

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Contact: Paula Deuermeier

 

Sustainable development has become a broadly discussed issue (Mensah, 2019) and a central challenge for all educational sectors (UNESCO (Eds.), 2020). While science, i. a. chemistry, has great potential and big responsibility to foster a positive, global-societal progress like it is defined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2015; MacKellar et al., 2020), there are also diverse fascinating trends within chemical research addressing problems of sustainability – so called Green & Sustainable Chemistry (Halpaap, 2020).

This project aims to learn more about the extent of implementation of Green and Sustainable Chemistry in higher education and about related opportunities as well as challenges. Therefore, the perspective and perceptions of lecturers and students on dealing with sustainable development or topics of sustainability in chemistry courses are investigated, using qualitative interviews, questionnaires as well as learning diaries.

 

References:

Halpaap, A. (2020). Chemistry and Sustainable Development: Challenges and Opportunities. United Nations Environment Programme publications.

MacKellar, J. J., Constable, D. J., Kirchhoff, M. M., Hutchinson, J. E., & Beckman, E. (2020). Toward a Green and Sustainable Chemistry Education Road Map. Journal of Chemical Education, 97, pp. 2104-2113.

Mensah, J. (2019). Sustainable development: Meaning, history, principles, pillars, and implications for human action: Literature review. Cogent Social Sciences, p. 1653531.

UN. (2015). United Nations General Assembly. Seventieth session. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York: United Nations publications.

UNESCO (Hrsg.). (2020). Education for Sustainable Development. A roadmap. Paris: UNESCO.