09-510 Chemistry and Sustainability
9 units, Carnegie Mellon University
This course aims to educate students in the foundations of systematic leadership for building a sustainable world. Many sustainability challenges are associated with commercial chemicals and with operational modes of the chemical enterprise. For scientists, effectiveness in solving the technical challenges and redirecting cultural behavior is the defining substance of sustainability leadership. The course aims to challenge students to analyze and understand the root causes of unsustainability, especially in the technological and cultural dimensions of the chemical enterprise, to imagine a more sustainable world and to begin to define personal leadership missions. Students will be introduced to sustainability ethics as the foundation stone of transformative sustainability leadership, to the Collins Code of Sustainability Ethics and to other guiding tools. The Collins Bookcase of Green Science Challenges organizes the technical content. It systematizes the major chemical sustainability challenges of our time: clean synthesis, renewable feed-stocks, safe energy, elemental pollutants, persistent molecular toxicants and endocrine disruptors. Focal areas will be the technical, toxicological and cultural histories of elemental and molecular pollutants and endocrine disruptor (ED) science. EDs represent the single greatest sustainability challenge of everyday chemicals all while we are just beginning to recognize an emerging threat to health and the environment from micro- and nano-plastics which are finding their way into human tissues. The course is intended for upper level undergraduates and graduates, although many brilliant freshmen have thrived in the course. The class is limited to 25 students. The assignments are common to both undergraduate and graduate classes offerings with graduates taking additional assignments. (Undergraduate course 9 units 09-510. Graduate course 12 units 09-710) 3 hrs. lec.
Prerequisites: none listed
Offered: Spring 2027, Spring 2026
Courseweave needs JavaScript to show sections, workloads and planning tools.