Chemistry Teacher International “Effective teaching tools and methods to learn about e-waste” issue

In 2021, the CHEMRAWN XXII conference “E-waste in Africa” was held in Lagos, Nigeria using a hybrid model to allow global involvement during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This milestone in our conference series came 43 years after the first CHEMRAWN Conference, which was on “Future Sources of Organic Raw Materials”. One of the recommended outcomes from the Future Actions Committee Report formulated at CHEMRAWN XXII ‘E-waste in Africa’ was to “Develop a course in e-waste for university students”. As a result, a resource page on e-waste was developed and is available via the IUPAC website (https://iupac.org/e-waste/) and a special issue of Chemistry Teacher International proposed.

This special issue results from an IUPAC project conducted to provide educational materials and insights for students and teachers working in secondary and tertiary education. This involved collaboration between three standing committees and two divisions of IUPAC (CHEMRAWN, CCE, COCI, Division II and Division VI), and highlights how progress can be made by working together towards a common goal. Knowledge about chemical problems related to e-waste handling and recycling is limited even among well-educated chemists. High School, College and University chemical education is critical due to the central role that chemistry plays in sustainable development and developing new, clean technologies. Most students have cell/mobile phones and access to computers, but many may be unaware of end-of-life or more general life cycle considerations for such devices. This special issue presents e-waste from a chemical perspective, and, as it is published in an open-access venue, it can be shared broadly and inspire educators to develop their own ideas on this important topic related to sustainable chemistry. In anticipation of this special issue, a webinar was held in collaboration with the educational foundation Beyond Benign during October 2023. It is archived here: https://www.beyondbenign.org/webinar/e-waste-management-in-brazil-diverse-approaches-for-a-sustainable-future/.

For this special issue, we have collected several papers that focus on educational approaches to e-waste. Many of them have been written by authors in Brazil but the experiments undertaken could be performed and investigations undertaken by students around the world. We hope you enjoy reading the papers and find them useful in your work. We thank the authors, their students and all the project task group members for their work.

Francesca Kerton

Chair, IUPAC CHEMRAWN Committee