Greening the Chemistry Curriculum: Catching Them Young

Abstract

This paper aims at advocating the integration of green chemistry principles for sustainability into the existing senior secondary or high school chemistry curriculum. Researches and training in this all important area had been targeted towards university level education and research and industry with little or no effort at inculcating the principles of green chemistry in the youngsters. Using the Nigerian Senior Secondary Curriculum as a case study for the proposed integration, it was observed that several of the contents could be made to incorporate the principles of green chemistry without much overburdening. It is the opinion of the authors that catching them young this way will yield a long term benefit of producing chemists and industrialists who would enforce greener policies and work for safer environment. This would in turn help to achieve sustainable environment devoid of prevalent environmental problems occasioned by incessant climate change and other greenhouse effects.