Andy Dicks

Published Articles

My strong interest in and commitment to green chemistry education and the development of novel curricular materials dates back to 2004. At that time I began developing undergraduate experiments at the University of Toronto (U of T) for organic laboratories that focused on greener reaction solvent replacements (e.g. water, polyethylene glycol) and solvent-free reactions. One example (““Greening Up” the Suzuki Reaction”) published in the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) was adopted by Mayo, Pike and Forbes in Microscale Organic Laboratory with Multistep and Multiscale Syntheses, 6th Ed., 2015. This introductory work focused on a “show and tell” approach to teaching green chemistry, which has matured into the design of innovative experiments requiring a high degree of student input. This is exemplified by the article “Green Chemistry Decision-Making in an Upper-Level Undergraduate Organic Laboratory” which was the cover feature of the JCE July 2014 issue. In total I have co-authored 12 journal publications reporting experiments conceived at the University of Toronto that are suitable for sophomore- and junior-level teaching purposes: these have largely appeared in JCE, The Chemical Educator and Green Chemistry Letters and Reviews (GCLR). These laboratory exercises have contributed to the Chemical Institute of Canada Canadian National Green Chemistry & Engineering Award (Individual Category) in 2015. My initial efforts in this venue led to the co-design of a brand-new junior course for chemistry program students called Organic Synthesis Techniques (CHM 343H) in 2008. This laboratory-intensive offering focuses on teaching sustainable chemistry approaches via different cutting-edge catalytic methodologies (often Nobel Prize-winning ones). Associated classes are used to teach green chemistry principles and practice through relevant industrial case studies and assignments, with the course being recognized through an American Chemical Society-Committee on Environmental Improvement Award for Incorporating Sustainability into Chemistry Education in 2011, and a University of Toronto Sustainability Office Green Ribbon Award in 2014. An additional 12 journal publications have also resulted from undergraduate laboratory curriculum design, in areas including green metrics and waste analysis, as well as in high school settings. As of July 2024, these 24 articles have been viewed >83,000 times (metrics available for JCE and GCLR publications only).

I have acted as a faculty mentor to our departmental graduate student-run Green Chemistry Initiative (GCI) since it formed in 2012. As its overarching goal, the GCI provides green chemistry resources in order to promote sustainability in chemistry research and education both inside and outside our institution. One excellent example of the GCI’s activities is their Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry YouTube video series: currently registering >172,000 views, these videos seek to explain the Twelve Principles in an engaging and accessible way to non-experts. The GCI also organizes an annual symposium that attracts attendees from across North America: I have developed and taught a “crash course” on green chemistry at the symposium a total of six times. My approach to curriculum redesign and collaboration with the GCI led U of T to join the Beyond Benign Green Chemistry Commitment (GCC) in 2016: in doing so we became the first international school to sign the GCC, which is a voluntary initiative set up to assist in the preparation of chemists whose skills are aligned with the needs of the planet and its inhabitants in the 21st century. This move provided great impetus for us to infuse green principles into components of our undergraduate program separate from organic chemistry (most notably into freshman general chemistry and sophomore inorganic courses, as well as introducing toxicology concepts into a junior environmental chemistry course), by adopting more of a systems-thinking approach to education. As departmental Associate Chair Undergraduate (2019-present), I had the opportunity to create a “Focus in Green Chemistry” program in 2021 (a Focus is a special cluster of courses on a particular theme or topic that a student may take at U of T in conjunction with a Specialist or Major program in order to receive certification). This is in keeping with our departmental philosophy of embedding green chemistry approaches into a range of undergraduate courses across different sub-disciplines, rather than mounting a dedicated course alone and running the concomitant risk of marginalization. Currently there are more than 50 students enrolled in our Focus program, where CHM 343H is the capstone experience: the decade-long evolution of this course was described in an ACS book chapter in 2020, with over 610 students having successfully completed it since its inception. Students are now formally assessed in CHM 343H to ensure they are meeting course learning objectives through an industrial case-based assignment and a practical laboratory examination which introduces a basic life-cycle assessment.

As well as disseminating creative activities through journal articles, I have been very active in authoring and editing/co-editing textbooks and book chapters, as well as making conference presentations. The textbooks include the following: (1) “Green Chemistry Metrics: A Guide to Determining and Evaluating Process Greenness” (2014, Springer, co-authored with Andrei Hent) which has been accessed online over 13,000 times; (2) “Integrating Green and Sustainable Chemistry Principles into Education” (2019, Elsevier, co-edited with Loyd Bastin, Professor of Chemistry, Widener University); (3) “Problem-Solving Exercises in Green and Sustainable Chemistry” (2015, CRC Press, solely edited), “…is an excellent book which should be a part of the library of educators who teach the subject, and chemists in general… this unique and valuable book is most highly recommended” (Vera M. Kolb, Professor of Chemistry Emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Parkside); and (4) “Green Organic Chemistry in Lecture and Laboratory” (2011, CRC Press, solely edited), “The principles of green chemistry should be taught to all undergraduates, but most of the available books on green chemistry do not, to my mind, provide the industrial focus, particularly the process chemistry focus, that is necessary. All that has changed with this new book… it is highly recommended to all interested in green chemistry” (Trevor Laird, Editor, Organic Process Research & Development). In addition, I have authored/co-authored 10 book chapters (e.g., “Recent Progress in Green Undergraduate Organic Laboratory Design”): the journal articles, textbooks and book chapters have been cited >1100 times in total. I have delivered more than 50 presentations (14 invited, two keynote) and been a co-author on 21 other presentations at conferences including the ACS Biennial Conference on Chemistry Education (BCCE), the ACS Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference, the Chemical Institute of Canada Canadian Chemistry Conference & Exhibition (CCCE), and the IUPAC International Conference on Chemistry Education. I have been invited to give 31 colloquia at universities in North America and Europe, including four as part of a United Kingdom lecture tour related to a Royal Society of Chemistry Education Award in 2018 (citation: “awarded for innovation in organic chemistry education research and practice, most significantly in the venue of teaching green chemistry principles to undergraduates via novel laboratory activities”).

Together with the mentorship of GCI graduate students, I have been proactive in championing student participation in the green chemistry curriculum redesign process. To that end, I have directly supervised and mentored 14 undergraduates (many of them in formal research courses) and 12 graduate students as part of our departmental Chemistry Teaching Fellowship Program: many of these individuals are co-authors on publications. I have also taken the informal mentorship of faculty at other institutions extremely seriously and, in that vein, I have been highly engaged in the broader chemistry teaching community through the organization/co-organization of specific teaching symposia at 10 conferences (six x BCCE, four x CCCE) since 2010. To me it is very important that faculty and students have the opportunity to publish their work via an open-access pathway, and this led to my co-editing of two special issues of GCLR with Loyd Bastin on “Advances in Green Chemistry Education” in 2019 and 2022. The 20 articles published in these two issues have accumulated >74,000 views. More generally, I was an Associate Editor of GCLR (five years) and an Advisory Board Member for the Beyond Benign GCC for two years.