Social, Economic, and Political Contexts for Chemistry Through Sustainability.

Haxton, Katherine

Abstract

Chemistry has a complex relationship with society: on one hand income generator and employer, on the other polluter and exploiter. Chemistry students must, through their undergraduate degrees, learn to place their core chemical concepts in the wider context of the societal, economic and political infrastructure. Teaching sustainability provides the ideal opportunity to do this by requiring students to consider the broader context of chemistry with reference to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and other lenses. By refusing to accept chemistry as a 'neutral' subject, a position often taken when discussing science (that science is neither good nor bad, only the uses to which it is put), the contribution of chemistry can be critiqued and evaluated, and can be done so more broadly than through the 12 principles of Green Chemistry. Sustainable Chemistry provides an ideal opportunity to link skills, context, and real world applications. This talk will describe the evolution and evaluation of a Sustainable Chemistry module at Keele University over the past 6 years.

• Presentation Conference Type: Speech
• Conference Name: Variety in Chemistry Education / Physics Higher Education Conference 2019
• Start Date: Aug 21, 2019
• End Date: Aug 22, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 16, 2023
• Publisher URL: https://vicephec.org/2019/