Many traditional organic chemistry lab experiments require toxic or harmful reactants and solvents. In an effort to increase student safety and decrease environmental hazards, members of the chemistry faculty at Siena College have begun to replace conventional organic chemistry experiments with equivalent green chemistry experiments. During the 2005/06 academic year approximately 2/3 of the student used the traditional lab curriculum. The others learned green chemistry principles and ran equivalent but greener experiments.

In this presentation we will discuss our reasons for pursuing green chemistry, the methods we are using to make these changes and some experiments we have used. We will present the results of student experiments and student satisfaction with the green chemistry labs.

The initial results are positive. Anecdotal evidence suggests that students in the green lab sections were more interested chemistry lab and more enthusiastic about their experiments. Reactions often occurred faster, leaving students time to run further experiments with different reagents or changing experimental parameters. In addition, these students generated less waste and were more aware of environmental and safety hazards than students in the traditional lab sections.

During the 2006/2007 academic year, additional green organic chemistry experiments will be developed and tested with students. The goal of this effort is to replace as many traditional experiments as possible and have a self published green organic chemistry manual in place for 2007/2008.