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NOTES TO INSTRUCTORS
GENERAL
Daryle Busch, president of the
American Chemical Society said "Green chemistry represents the
pillars that hold up our sustainable future. It
is imperative to teach the value of green chemistry to
tomorrow's chemists.”
Because green chemistry is rapidly
becoming the wave of the future, we believe that it is very
important that students are exposed to green chemistry
in many courses across their chemistry
curriculum. These green chemistry modules were
developed by a team of faculty members from the
University of Scranton for the purpose of inserting green
chemistry into specific courses encompassing the
chemistry curriculum. It is our hope that other
instructors will use these modules as models for infusing
green chemistry into their courses. We encourage
instructors to use, modify and copy them according to
their needs for educational purposes, however any commercial
use is prohibited unless permission is granted by the authors. We
ask that you let us know when and how you use them (cannm1@uofs.edu). This
will aid us in the assessment of the outcomes of this project.
In order to use the modules we suggest
that you first have your students read the Introduction
to Green
Chemistry
and then the specific module for your course. You may then want to
discuss this material in
class. To aid you in presenting the material in
class, each module is equipped with a set of PowerPoint
slides. You may want to have students make hard
copies of the PowerPoint slides to aid in note taking.
Although each module was developed
for a particular course we encourage instructors to peruse all the
modules and find ways to infuse additional green chemistry
into all the courses you teach. Other efforts
to bring green chemistry into the classroom can be found
at
http://academic.scranton.edu/faculty/CANNM1/greenchemistry.html
BIOCHEMICAL TOXICOLOGY MODULE
This module
is intended primarily for use in an upper level undergraduate course in
biochemical toxicology although it may also be applicable to upper level
courses in biochemistry, environmental science, and biology. It is
assumed that the students have had two semesters of organic chemistry,
at least a one-semester of biochemistry, and introductory biology.
The suggested use of this module is as a supplement to a discussion on
the mechanisms underlying the acute toxicity of insecticides and/or the
possible relationships between environmental exposures to insecticides
(or other xenobiotics) and human disease. It could also be used as
a springboard for a more in-depth discussion and, perhaps, literature search
by the students concerning how specific insecticides or other xenobiotics
might adversely affect mitochondrial function, CYP levels/activity, and
hormone systems.