“Students have the power to question existing systems and push for new approaches,” says Jesse Morin, a Lecturer at Brown University. Morin (right) is pictured alongside students Steve Bella (left) and Nicholas Albaum (center) who supported Brown in becoming the first Ivy League Green Chemistry Commitment signer. Photo courtesy of the Brown University Department of Chemistry.
A single question from a student research project sparked Brown University’s broader commitment to the principles of green chemistry. This idea emerged from Reimagining Chemistry, a course first taught in 2024 by Lecturer Jesse Morin, and a project that challenged students to rethink an aspect of chemistry at the university or within the Providence, Rhode Island, community. While seeking answers to their question, Brown students Nicholas Albaum and Steve Bella expanded awareness of green chemistry among their peers as well as faculty and administrators. They also gained hands-on experience in outreach and practical applications — skills they can carry into their future careers, creating ripple effects far beyond Morin’s classroom.
Like many other universities, Brown courses have incorporated principles of green chemistry for years. With the new Reimagining Chemistry course, Morin saw an opportunity to devote a section to green chemistry and encourage students to broaden their thinking about the long-term implications of lab experiments and research. “Green chemistry is a really good way to introduce how chemistry can be a solution, instead of talking and focusing on history and problems. It’s more forward-thinking,” Morin says. “In the class, we’re talking about the ways that chemistry impacts the world around it, both positive and negative.”
For Albaum, a senior with a concentration in biochemistry, the Reimagining Chemistry project sparked questions about what happens downstream, literally and figuratively, with chemicals used in experiments. “It stemmed from chemistry labs, when we had excess reagent or excess product, and I was trying to figure out how to properly dispose of this,” he says. “It just really got me curious about what is the pathway for these things that we’re using to synthesize and the product that we’ve synthesized — where’s this going to end up?”
Albaum and classmate and research project partner Bella started by taking their question to the university’s Environmental Health and Safety Office, which regulates all campus labs and lab waste at Brown University. “In talking with them, one of the problems that we found was there’s not really enough attention given to this process of what actually happens to the waste that’s going through our labs, its end fate and the consequences,” Albaum says.
As the students explored potential pathways to address lab waste, Morin pointed them to Beyond Benign’s Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) — a framework to unite the green chemistry higher education community around a common vision. Through the GCC, educational institutions can connect with a community of chemistry education experts, get access to funding opportunities, expand the community of green chemists, and more. GCC signers include more than 215 educational institutions around the world.
Although Morin helped connect the students with the GCC, she attributes the program’s progress at Brown to their curiosity and determination. Brown became the first Ivy League university to sign the GCC, a distinction among the eight prestigious institutions known for their rigorous academics and selective admissions. “I was aware of the Green Chemistry Commitment before this class, but it was the students who took the initiative to get us signed on,” Morin says.
According to Morin, having students spearhead the GCC initiative was likely a key factor in its success at Brown. “Getting students involved is a tremendous advantage because, in many ways, they have more influence than I do in driving change,” she explains. “Students have the power to question existing systems and push for new approaches.”
The GCC signing process served as an additional learning experience for the students, as they navigated getting approval from the chemistry department chair and a university administrator at Brown. “It’s an opportunity to have a conversation (about green chemistry),” Morin says. “People across Brown know about it a little bit more than they might have.”
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Students Will Carry Lab Lessons Forward Into Their Careers
As a junior majoring in chemistry with plans to study dentistry, Bella sees the GCC as an opportunity to inspire others who will move on to healthcare careers. “Chemistry is one of the most foundational sciences that all people that go into medical fields are learning,” he says. “It’s a good place to get people starting to think about sustainability and green lab practices.”
A lot of students are involved in undergraduate research, and together their small changes can add up to meaningful impact, Bella says. “Knowing the principles of green chemistry and always keeping them in the back of your mind will lead you to having more sustainable lab practices,” he says. “You go into the lab every couple days or every day or whatever and you’re scaling down your reactions, you’re using less stuff overall, that adds up really quickly to an overall more green impact.”
As he moves forward with his dentistry studies and career, Bella plans to carry green chemistry principles with him. “It’s so easy to get wrapped up in memorizing and learning, and blindly looking at the reactions and absorbing it. But I say think about it a little more, maybe research the reaction, the history of it, how harsh the conditions actually are. … That’s really a good way to immerse yourself in the content that you’re learning. And maybe it can inspire you to go further and maybe try to make more changes to a specific reaction. It’s a cool way to differentiate your book studies and your real-life experiences.”
Albaum also plans to carry forward what he’s learned about green chemistry, a decision that reinforces the importance of teaching more students about the implications of their lab work. “It’s important to plant a seed now when we’re students because there’s a chance that I end up running a research lab or being a professor … and I’ll have the authority to say we’re going to do this in a better way.”
At Brown, he sees the opportunity to introduce green chemistry principles into more courses, especially at the introductory level, and dedicate more classwork to green chemistry initiatives. “You sometimes don’t consider that the product you’re trying to make has consequences when it’s released into the world,” he says. “What happens when this gets in the atmosphere? What happens when this gets in a person? To me, that’s what green chemistry is about.”
He also appreciated how the GCC connects signer institutions with resources and incentives like awards for faculty and student groups. But even more, he’s noticed that the GCC provides reinforcement for suggestions and updates for lab work and other projects. “Since joining this commitment, it feels like we have the backing of the university and of the chemistry department,” Albaum says. “It gives a little more confidence to suggest how we actually start changing our methods and stop using outdated procedures. … It’s nice to have a little bit of weight behind the initiative to do things a little greener.”
GCC Helps Students and Faculty Drive Change on Campus and Beyond
Taking action to mitigate the environmental impact of their lab work is a concept that resonates with many college students, Morin says, as they are more likely to face the long-term effects of the climate crisis. “They are the generation that’s going to have to deal with the consequences of what we do or don’t do,” Morin says. “It’s something that hopefully they just already are thinking and caring about.”
Through the GCC, students and faculty can work together to incorporate practices that raise awareness of the need for change. Morin encourages faculty at other institutions to turn to the GCC and organizations like Beyond Benign for support as they expand green chemistry coursework. “Don’t feel like you have to do all or nothing. You can do a small piece, and that will make a big difference,” she says. “At most universities, their curriculum is changing on a regular basis. So if you could make it part of just a change that has to happen anyway, like I did with changing the format of the lab, it might be a more natural fit.”
This gradual approach will guide Morin as she incorporates more green chemistry practices in courses like Reimagining Chemistry. “I’m hoping future iterations of the class might make resources more tailored toward research labs and make them aware of greener choices or to be aware of greener solvent choices,” she says.
“My goal is that someday in the not-too-distant future, green chemistry isn’t the topic that comes up in other classes, but it’s just the way they’re taught,” Morin says. “If we can do small things in different courses and across the department that raise awareness in general, it’ll just become the way that people do things.”
Learn more about other GCC signers:
- Union College Leads the Way in Green Chemistry Education as a Green Chemistry Commitment Signer and an American Chemical Society-Approved Program
- Driving Green Chemistry in Brazil with Beyond Benign: The Inspiring Journey of Cintia Milagre
- Berlin Universities and Partners Catalyze Green Chemistry Movement with GCC and greenCHEM Project
