Greening Chemistry: Don’t let resistance to change stop students from changing the world

New experiences, opportunities, and challenges can change our perspectives and introduce new ways to see concepts and issues that we thought we already understood—or that we had no idea existed. And it’s clear that science, especially chemistry, can help explain, influence, and improve the lives of so many individuals and species around the world. Nevertheless, as a discipline we can be very resistant to combining these three concepts—chemistry, education, and life—and applying them together to conserve life and promote a better, more sustainable, and healthier future for our generation and the ones to come. The experience of learning offers the chance to understand more about something that’s familiar and the opportunity to encounter new information to change your perspective. That’s why I wonder why the majority of chemistry students are currently being taught the same things that their mentors were, in the same way. Clearly, the world is not the same as it was 30–40 years ago. Shouldn’t we prioritize equipping the future workforce with the knowledge and skills to design cost-effective, high-performance, and less harmful processes and products, especially since there is a growing interest in green and sustainable chemistry among students?Plenty of studies, reports, and surveys support the idea that current students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics understand their unique responsibility in making the world a better place. Students want to invent real-world solutions that could tackle the environmental and societal problems of today and those that are likely to emerge tomorrow. Industry has been supporting green