Environmental Chemistry

About the course

Utica University's Environmental Chemistry (CHE 405) is a 3-credit lecture course that serves as an elective for chemistry majors and minors. It typically has three one-hour classes per week. There is no lab component to this course.

About my approach

I taught CHE 405 for the first time in Fall 2022 to a small class (fewer than 10 students). I used Manahan's Environmental Chemistry, 11th ed., as the course textbook, but I will probably choose differently next time.

I chose the following course goals, based on prior instructors' syllabi and my understanding of the department's goals:

  • explain the chemical principles of environmental processes and concerns
  • describe environmental chemistry processes and concerns to a general audience
  • evaluate environmental safety issues
  • identify connections among chemistry, the environment, and society
  • apply the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry

Given the emphasis on communicating with a general audience and making connections between science and society, I wanted the students to have a chance to talk things through. I also just wanted the class to feel different from a typical chemistry class. I wanted to make the material personal. So Mondays and Wednesdays were lecture days (chemistry concepts, reactions, vocabulary, etc.), and Fridays were discussions. We had weekly reflective journaling assignmnets, we talked about how different topics and issues made us feel, we included poetry and visual art, and we did mini projects about the how the environmental issues affect our own everyday lives.

Readings & Resources

Here is something of a course bibliography. Some items were required reading/watching/listening, some items were optional, a few articles were mentioned in passing, and a small handfull informed my approach to class but were not explicitly cited in class. Throughout the semester I maintained this list in a file shared with my students.