Environmental Sustainability in Coursework: Biology & Chemistry

"In spite of increasing attention devoted to the importance of embedding sustainability in university curricula, few Australian universities include specific green chemistry units, and there is no mention of green or sustainable chemistry concepts in the majority of units. In this paper, an argument is posited that all universities should embed sustainable chemistry within all Chemistry courses because it is the morally correct stance to minimise the harm of climate change. Attitudes of chemistry lecturers towards integrating sustainability into their teaching have been probed and it was found, using an established model, that personal environmental perspectives are critical to their attitude. Importantly, academic staff whose research has an environmental component were more likely to incorporate sustainability into their teaching while others struggled to find ways to do so even when they believed it to be important. This paper will recommend that resources are required to assist academic staff without a green chemistry research program to incorporate sustainability into their teaching and several suggestions are provided. "

Sustainable development and sustainability are two widely used umbrella concepts, both “brilliantly ambiguous.” Many fields of study, including engineering, business, the humanities, and the sciences offer opportunities for instructors to connect content with sustainability. As the central science, chemistry is surely one of them. This paper issues a call for action to chemistry instructors to build stronger connections in the college chemistry curriculum to the local, regional and global challenges that we face on our planet. These challenges, multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary, include providing clean energy, protecting the environment and stewarding its resources, employing wise agricultural practices to supply food, and insuring clean water and clean air to those in all communities. As a chemical concept, the carbon cycle connects to challenges such as these. It is presented as a possibility for building stronger connections to sustainability in the curriculum.

Sustainability education offers higher education institutions opportunities to broaden the participation of groups traditionally underrepresented in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. This chapter focuses on an exploratory case study that looks at how sustainability education can be used as a tool to increase student engagement and participation in STEM at the undergraduate level and why it should be considered as an important tool for addressing diversity challenges.

Students at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, can now take an innovative biology course in which an integrated, interdisciplinary, problem-based approach is used--one that the scientific community itself is promoting. The first course in a four-semester sequence, Biology 123--The Living World: Concepts and Connections--explores real-world problems and biology's role in addressing these major societal issues. In Bio123, students learn core biological concepts while developing their problem-solving and quantitative skills and applying their new knowledge to societal challenges related to food, the environment, energy, and health. Too often, faculty use teaching methods that do not support the ways in which people learn, the needs of the world, or the job market. By focusing on sustainability, students can experience firsthand the relevance of their science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses and can gain insight into how they can contribute to solving challenging global problems both throughout their lives and through their own career choices.