Introduction
Organic chemistry is a university course that hundreds of students take. This makes it an excellent gateway to incorporate sustainability and green chemistry practices in teaching. Green chemistry focuses on reducing waste and chemical hazards through alternative processes in chemistry experiments. Teaching students about green chemistry helps them make informed decisions in their lives on sustainability issues like climate change. The article explores barriers to changing what instructors teach in chemistry.
Methods
Eight organic chemistry instructors received surveys about teaching approaches and knowledge of green chemistry. The instructors participated in interviews that had a list of questions and explored their survey responses. The audio recording from the interview underwent transformation into text before analysis. The analysis involved listening to the recording and creating categories based on the instructor’s words. The team further sorted categories into sub-categories developed in a previous study. Two researchers separately categorized the data to ensure consistency.
Findings
The instructors shared five barriers to changing their teaching practices. They lacked expertise, time, quality teaching resources, department support and university support to implement these changes. Green chemistry is not a priority compared to organic chemistry content knowledge. This is because organic chemistry knowledge is needed for students’ progression in later courses. These findings highlight a discrepancy between a desire to teach green chemistry and the slow integration into organic chemistry courses.
Implications
The research helps us to understand the challenges instructors face in updating the organic chemistry content they teach. These experiences highlight the need for teaching resources, funding, and university policy to help instructors change their teaching practices. These supports can help to ensure that sustainability topics are more routinely taught in first and second years of university.
Limitations
The goal of research with a small number of participants is not to generalize. Rather, it is to understand the experiences shared in greater detail. The main limitation is that the findings do not account for all Canadian organic chemistry instructors’ experiences. Results could also differ depending on the university. Further work could explore the incorporation of green chemistry in organic laboratory activities. This is better established than lecture reform.
References
Parker, A., Noronha, E., & Bongers, A. (2023). Beyond the Deficit Model: Organic Chemistry Educators’ Beliefs and Practices about Teaching Green and Sustainable Chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education, 100(5), 1728–1738. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c00780
About the Author
Shauna Schechtel is a PhD Candidate at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on exploring students’ experiences in chemistry laboratories to improve chemistry education.
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