Green chemistry, atom economy and sustainable development

The competing needs of development and environmental protection are often mentioned in the media, and many learners have opinions on the subject. Chemistry is seen as a polluter, which partially accounts for its poor image among learners and the public.

Introduce your learners to the concept of atom economy in the context of sustainable development and green chemistry with this activity and show that development is necessary but can be achieved in a way which limits environmental damage.

Learning objectives

1. Understand what sustainable development is and the role of green chemistry in advancing it.
2. Explain the importance of percentage yield and atom economy for sustainable development.
3. Calculate the percentage yield and atom economy of a chemical process given relevant data.

How to use this resource

You can use these student sheets and lesson slides to enrich your teaching of quantitative chemistry or when covering pollution and sustainable development. Use it either as a teacher-led activity in class or set it for independent learning.

The lesson slides include further reading for learners to find out more about how they as individuals and potential chemists of the future can contribute to sustainable development. Highlight the range of careers available in chemistry using the article Why the world urgently needs more chemists, featuring a diverse selection of chemists working in fields linked to sustainable development.

You can find further teaching activities, ideas and curriculum-linked resources on sustainable development in the Sustainability in chemistry collection.

Scaffolding

Scaffolded (✪) and unscaffolded (✪✪) versions of the worksheets are included. The scaffolded version provides support for the calculation included in the resource. The lesson slides provide two worked examples of how to calculate percentage yield and atom economy with an increase in challenge from the first to the second example in each case. The examples are different to those in the student worksheet to allow you to model the calculations before learners attempt the questions independently.

Questions

Questions can be found in the scaffolded and unscaffolded versions of the student sheets, as well as on the lesson slides. 

Answers

Answers can be found in the teacher notes and the lesson slides.