Let us help you inspire the next generation of scientists! Find open-access lessons about green chemistry to add to your curriculum for elementary, middle, and high school students.
Integrating green chemistry into your lessons, classroom activities, and lab experiments can help you:
Create safer, engaging lessons.
Prepare students for the workforce by helping them think creatively through practical problems.
Help you teach cross-disciplinary concepts that align with:
It’s never too early to get your students thinking about green chemistry topics! Here are some open-access lessons to introduce green chemistry concepts to elementary school classrooms:
Properties of Adhesives: A Sticky Situation: By making and comparing different glues, students learn about the properties of adhesives and how nature can inspire new innovations.
The Secrets of Sharks’ Skin: Learn how sharks have inspired innovations in antimicrobial surfaces through a hands-on simulation.
Honoring the Salmon: Students learn the role of salmon in the history and culture of the first peoples of our region. Watch the Through Salmon Eyes video have students think from a salmon’s perspective and discuss how green chemistry and sustainable science can help decrease our impacts on the environment.
CreositySpace Conscientious Chemists: Students learn about green chemistry from the perspective of entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers.
STEMify Your Classroom Supply List: In this lesson students will develop an evidence-based argument after investigating the product safety, performance, and cost of a variety of cleaning and disinfecting products. Students will be introduced to the principles of sustainable design, life-cycle thinking, and how to identify safer products using certifications.
Middle school educators can bring green chemistry into their classrooms using the following curriculum resources:
Sustainable STEM: Making Mushroom Materials: Students create their own cellphone case out of renewable mushroom material and assess the product against three green chemistry criteria.
Ocean plastics: Students design an alternative to plastic beverage bottles, and evaluate their alternative using three green chemistry criteria.
Polymers for the Planet: Students solve a real world design challenge created by Boeing engineers in partnership with teachers. Using science and engineering, students work through an iterative process that results in the development and testing of prototypes.
JV InvenTeams on Green Chemistry: Students learn how to apply green chemistry to promote sustainable design, bioplastics, and chemical science.
CreositySpace Conscientious Chemists: Students learn about green chemistry from the perspective of entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers.
Ask Nature: Activities about biomimicry and green chemistry.
ClimeTime: An OSPI-facilitated climate science learning program.
High school resources
Create a safer lab environment
By taking stock of your current chemicals and either substituting them for safer alternatives or replacing them with green chemistry experiments, you can create a safer classroom environment.
Complete your chemical inventory
School labs must have complete chemical inventories, safety data sheets, and written hazard communication and chemical hygiene plans. Use King County's Rehab the Lab tools to help you understand these requirements better.
Replace toxic chemicals with safer alternatives
Look for safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals in experiments you already teach. For ideas on replacing chemicals with safer alternatives, contact our Pollution Prevention Assistance program.
If you must keep certain chemicals, be sure they are stored properly.
Substitute traditional experiments with safer versions
Find safer experiments that cover the same content as traditional labs but use safer chemicals. Some examples include:
Oxybenzone vs. Zinc Oxide in Sunscreen: Students learn about chemical toxicity and safety issues associated with UV, tanning, and sun exposure. Students collect and analyze data to better understand the health differences between zinc oxide and oxybenzone.
Online Summer Green Chemistry Courses for High School teachers
Introductory and advanced online summer courses are offered each year to provide educators with tools to integrate green chemistry principles and practices into their classroom. These courses are structured in an interactive go-at-your-own-pace format. Optional graduate education credits available.
Beyond Benign: Open-access resources and activities to bring green chemistry and physical science topics to high school classrooms.
Chemical Hazard Awareness Module (PDF): Beyond Benign created this module in partnership with us to help students understand the language of chemical hazards. Students learn to identify types of chemical reactions and distinguish between those that use safer, less hazardous chemicals and those that are more dangerous:
Funding
If you are a high school teacher and need funding to start a green chemistry initiative, consider applying for an American Chemical Society Grant.
This free poster invites you to learn how to make more sustainable products by thinking about a product's full life cycle using the 6 Rs of Sustainable Design:
Rethink.
Refuse.
Reduce.
Reuse.
Repair.
Recycle.
Attend a training or workshop
We collaborate with teachers and partners including Educational Service Districts and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), Beyond Benign, and Washington Science Teachers Association to offer these trainings.
“This training quite exceeded my expectations. I hadn't expected as much practical, ready-to-implement-now information as I got.”
– Teacher who attended a training organized by our Green Chemist, Saskia van Bergen, and Washington Science Teachers Association.
Need help?
For help getting started or to find out more about green chemistry and how to incorporate this topic into your curriculum, contact Saskia van Bergen.
