Integrating social and environmental justice into the chemistry classroom: a chemist’s toolbox

Abstract

Although the chemical enterprise has provided numerous contributions to humanity, unintended consequences contribute to a disproportionate exposure of hazardous chemicals to certain populations based on race and socioeconomic status. Integrating concepts of social and environmental justice within chemistry curriculum provides an educational framework to help mitigate these impacts by training the next generation of chemists with justice-centered and green chemistry principles to guide their future work. Green and sustainable chemistry technologies can contribute to social equity and environmental justice. However, equity and social justice have only recently become a significant part of the green chemistry conversation. This article summarizes how the authors have explored issues of equity and environmental justice with the green and sustainable chemistry community. It offers a toolbox for college and university instructors containing foundational language, research, and idea-generation that can be used to strengthen the transition of a traditional chemistry curriculum toward a justice-centered one.

Keywords

• Social justice
• environmental justice
• chemistry curriculum
• community-engaged participatory research
• social justice education pedagogy
• critical race pedagogy
• green chemistry
• systems thinking