Teaching Green and Sustainable Chemistry: A Revised One-Semester Course Based on Inspirations and Challenges

An elective course, Toward the Greening of Our Minds: Green and Sustainable Chemistry, has been offered at Washington College since 2005. This new course without laboratory is designed for chemistry and biology majors and minors who have previously taken two semesters of general chemistry and organic chemistry. Due to the popularity of the course, the enrollment nearly doubled since 2005. Specific changes needed to be implemented to respond to students' feedback and needs but also to account for the expansion of the field of green chemistry. The original goals associated with this course are still incorporated yet are now addressed differently to provide students with up-to-date, quantitative, and skillful knowledge of green chemistry applications and metrics. The ultimate goal is for students to use their critical thinking skills to produce an innovation proposal and to become responsible citizens of the 21st century.