Division/Committee: [CHED: Division of Chemical Education]

Chemistry, grounded as it is in the molecules and materials that sustain life, has a central role to play in understanding the 21st Century’s complex sustainability challenges and in working across disciplines to find solutions. But we are running out of time! This ACS symposium will be held near the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century – only five years before the 2030 target date for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and twenty-five years before the 2050 net-zero date for global accords to tackle climate change. The last decade has seen important progress in the contributions chemistry makes to the emergence of sustainability, including orientations such as green, sustainable, and circular chemistry; tools such as systems thinking and life-cycle analyses; and frameworks such as the UNSDG and the Planetary Boundaries framework. Significant threads in Peter Mahaffy’s professional work have woven chemistry as a human activity with systems thinking and other tools to better equip students for complexity, change, uncertainty, vulnerability, and resilience on a rapidly changing planet. Speakers are invited to draw out some of these threads and weave them together with threads from their own work that they find helpful in reimagining chemistry education. Together we will highlight catalysts, tools, and approaches that show promise to transform chemistry education to better tackle the urgent sustainability agendas facing people and the planet for the world of 2050 and beyond.

Dr. Catherine Hurt Middlecamp

Professor Emerita, Univ of Wisconsin-Madison

Appearances