Danielle Garrett

2024 Beyond Benign Community Grant Award Winner

Title: Professional Development: “It’s Easy Being Green”

Lead Facilitator: Maria Danielle Garrett, Associate Professor of Chemistry Education at Belmont University

Project Description:

The ultimate goal of this program is to expand a sustainable green chemistry workshop series: “It’s Easy Being Green: Budget-Friendly Safety-Conscious Chemistry Labs for the Secondary Science Classroom of Today” – a free professional development program for physical science and chemistry middle school and high school science teachers. Not only does this program provide science teachers with new ideas that they can affordably incorporate into their classroom, but it also has the potential to provide both teachers and their students with the basic skills to “think green” – providing them with new eco-friendly ways of addressing problem-solving in chemistry both within and outside the classroom. 

There are three objectives to help reach the goal of this program expansion.  

Objective 1: A new professional development workshop will be offered during the academic year.  

Objective 2: Teachers attending the half-day professional development workshop will be eligible to apply for a small microgrant ($50-$100 in value) for curriculum items, lab materials, and/or professional development opportunities that focus on green chemistry topics and classroom applications. 

Objective 3: A Google Sites page will be developed to help recruit teacher attendees for both the new professional development offering and the summer offering. Teachers who are awarded microgrants will be highlighted on the site. They will be asked to share their ideas and outcomes from the microgrant, creating a green chemistry resource bank for other teachers.