Sustainability has environmental, social, and economic aspects. Although the contributions that the field of chemistry can make to address the challenges of sustainability are primarily within the environmental domain, doing something with data on environmental degradation or implementing a new technology requires engagement with social and economic domains. How can we better prepare undergraduate chemistry students to tackle the complex multidisciplinary challenges of sustainability? We have developed a series of guided inquiry learning activities that address the chemistry of environmental processes, environmental degradation, and energy production; but also introduce relevant non-chemistry content such as how economists think about environmental degradation and how the process of risk assessment is done. To encourage students to think about effective means of discussing complex problems with technical components with the general public, students are required to write a critical review of a book written for general audiences about a chemistry-related sustainability issue. The lab associated with this course has a significant project component, focused on studying the use of algal turf scrubbers (ATS) to remediate nutrient-rich coastal water. Students work in small teams on short research projects of their own design using the solar-powered ATS units built for the course. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the NSF TUES program (DUE 1140692) for support of this project.

Connecting chemistry-related and non-chemistry-related aspects of sustainability in an upper division chemistry course

248th National Meeting (2014)

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