Pursuing Sustainability through Curriculum Greening: The Case of Green Chemistry

• In Event: 331 - Section on Environment and Technology Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 14. Media, Education, and the State of the Field

Abstract

In their seminal work Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict, Schnaiberg and Gould (1999) articulate how Universities undermine sustainability by training students with the beliefs, mindsets and practices that perpetuate society’s environmental problems, rather than provide them with the skills, perspectives and experiences that will enable them to question and transform the status quo. Consequently, university curriculum reform should be at the epi-center of sustainability efforts, and analyzing those efforts is this paper’s focus. Towards this end, I focus on chemistry greening efforts. Over the last 25 years, the chemical industry has increasingly turned to green chemistry principles to reduce the amount and toxicity of waste it produces. While this development has exciting environmental implications, that excitement is tempered when we consider the low uptake among American four-year colleges and universities. While a handful of institutions have comprehensively integrated green chemistry principles into their curriculum, there are 1200 institutions that lag far behind. Helping to account for this adoption lag is this paper’s main task. Towards this end I interviewed key informants and reviewed a vast array of green chemistry materials, including websites, books, edited volumes, and journal articles. While some analysts might attribute the adoption lag to an industrial conspiracy, this analysis takes a different tack, honing in on factors influencing instructor uptake, including beliefs about green chemistry, traditional academic values, and the role of other university constituents. By analyzing the chemistry greening movement, this paper sheds light on factors that can mediate the reform of other university curriculum.

Author

• Manuel Vallee, University of Auckland