Critical Raw Materials as a Socioscientific Issue in Chemistry Education: Comparative Cases from the European Union and the United States

Every developed or developing economy is dependent on the safe supply of raw materials. However, not every raw material is available in every country; some of them are rare or unevenly distributed across the earth. This makes some raw materials critical because their supply leads to dependencies that could be at risk of disruption. Both the European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) regularly analyze the strategic importance and necessity of raw materials and publish lists of those considered critical to the EU or U.S. economy. Since these raw materials are chemical substances, teaching about the criticality of important raw materials is suggested as a socioscientific issue for chemistry education. This article describes two cases of learning about the importance and criticality of certain raw materials based on the official reports from the EU and USA. Teaching took place using digital learning environments for high school education in Germany and undergraduate chemistry in the USA. First findings from both cases are reported.