Incorporation of green chemistry into undergraduate organic laboratory using cooperative project-based experiments and case studies

ABSTRACT

The large-enrollment undergraduate organic chemistry laboratories at Michigan State University have been redesigned to incorporate green and sustainable chemistry and evidence-based instructional approaches to laboratory teaching. Students engage in scientific practices such as defining problems, designing and carrying out experiments, analyzing data, and designing solutions during in-person lab sessions. Principles of green and sustainable chemistry are introduced in the case studies, where students investigate a variety of approaches and discuss the relative merits of different approaches from a range of perspectives including efficiency, environmental impact, and cost. An in-depth summary of design pedagogy, instructional materials, implementation details, instructor’s notes and challenges will be discussed.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Green chemistry
• chemical education research
• curriculum development
• laboratory instruction

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of both funding sources. The implementation of the reformed CEM 255 course would not have been possible without the support and feedback from teaching assistants and students in fall semester 2021 and spring semesters 2022. Special thanks go to Dr. Natalie O'Neil and Gustavo Casanova.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under DUE IUSE 2020195. The beta-testing of the curriculum is sponsored by Beyond Benign and Dow Inc. under Green Chemistry Education Challenges Awards between 2021.09 and 2023.09.