International Teacher Survey on Green and Sustainable Chemistry Practical Activities

Abstract

Chemistry teachers worldwide engage students in practical activities in different ways and for different reasons. In most countries, little is known about what teachers do during their laboratory sessions and whether they are using activities related to green chemistry or sustainability. To fill this gap, a major international survey was recently developed to collect a large baseline of data by surveying high school teachers about the frequency and type of practical activities that they use with their classes and their use of activities related to green or sustainable chemistry. This Symposium will describe the design, implementation and some results of the survey. Madeleine Schultz will introduce the project, including the design of survey questions and the logistics required to run it in many languages and contexts. Iztok Devetak will present the survey results from 130 Slovenian in-service lower and upper secondary school chemistry teachers. The survey was translated into Slovenian and disseminated among in-service teachers. The data were collected between November 2023 and January 2024. Only a few teachers also provided their laboratory worksheets where green and sustainable chemistry aspects are used according to them. Results indicate that 72% of in-service teachers think that the main reason for not implementing experimental work more into their teaching is the lack of time during chemistry lessons. Almost all teachers (92%) believe that experimental work is an important vehicle to introduce green and sustainable chemistry to students, but only 26% of them also conduct such experiments in school. Dusica Rodic will describe the importance of this survey in the Republic of Serbia, related to a national objective dedicated to enhancing the quality of education, specifically targeting knowledge and skills pertinent to sustainable development. The survey in Serbian language was launched in November 2023, and thus far, over 230 responses have been received. Insights gleaned from teachers who are integrating this transformation into their approach will be explored and discussed. Marina Stojanovska will present the results of the survey in North Macedonia (in Macedonian and Albanian) and activities that have followed on from this. This survey results served as a foundation for further investigation within a master’s thesis focused on developing and implementing activities with 8th-grade students aiming to foster eco-friendly habits among students, particularly as the activities involved outdoor learning in real-world environments outside the school premises. Finally, Seamus Delaney will round off the symposium with a preliminary analysis of the full set of results across all countries so far involved (as of February 2024, 46 countries and in 37 languages). The feasibility of how these findings could be used to inform teacher practice, professional learning programs and innovation in curriculum will be critiqued and discussed. Acknowledgements - The IUPAC Task Group chairs (Madeleine Schultz, Seamus Delaney, Iztok Devetak, Supawan Tantayanon) wish to acknowledge this project would not be possible without the extraordinary effort and commitment to this project from over 70 country coordinators. This invited symposium presents just a small sample of the amazing collaborative team. This research was conducted within the project "International Teacher Survey on Green and Sustainable Chemistry (GSC) Practical Activities" (No.: 2023-002-2-050) which has received grant funding from the IUPAC Committee on Chemical Education. The presentation of this work received additional financial support from the Ministry of Science, Technological Development, and Innovation of the Republic of Serbia (Grants No. 451-03-66/2024-03/200125 & 451-03-65/2024-03/200125), and funding support from the School of Education, Deakin University, Australia.