ACS-CES Award for Incorporation of Sustainability Into Chemical Education

Award at a Glance

TypeAward
Recipient K-12 Teacher, Faculty, Chemistry Professional, Volunteer
Category Teaching,  Green Chemistry
Amount$1200
DeadlineSeptember 30, 2025
Contactjwiss@umn.edu
Nominate

Purpose

To recognize those individuals or groups who have made exemplary contributions to the incorporation of sustainability into chemical education.

Description

The American Chemical Society’s mission is to  “Advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people,” As part of the Society’s new campaign for a Sustainable Future Strategic Initiative, a desired outcome is to "create a future chemistry enterprise workforce trained in sustainability concepts to revolutionize the discipline." This includes goals that "ACS will work with educators, students, researchers, and industry to modernize the chemistry curriculum to include sustainable development, circularity, green chemistry, and life cycle thinking." 

These awards seek to recognize those individuals or groups who have made exemplary contributions to this important work. A goal of this recognition program is to facilitate dissemination of important ways in which educators are creatively incorporating sustainability, UN SDGs, green chemistry, and/or systems thinking into their classroom and outreach programs. Therefore, awardees will be expected to present invited talks on their work as part of a symposium at a selected conference. 

It is anticipated that four to six different projects will be nationally recognized. In addition, each awardee will receive $1200 toward travel costs of attending the meeting.

Eligibility

Both third party and self-nominations are encouraged. Nominations should clearly demonstrate how the nominee or nominees have contributed to the effective incorporation of sustainability into chemical education. The target audience for the work can be one or more of the following: K-12 students, K-12 teachers, undergraduate students, graduate students, or the general public.

Nominations will be evaluated on the broad criteria of innovation, intellectual merit, and potential for broader impact. Additional important considerations include the extent to which sustainability is an important component of the education work, the extent to which the work supports learning of chemistry, and the overall quality of the design of the nominated work.

Award winners may select to have their material shared with educators nationally and internationally.

Deadline

September 30, 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET

How to Apply

Use the Nominate Button to the side to submit a nomination. Completed nominations or self-nominations must include the following information:

  • Full contact information (mailing address, phone number, email address).
  • A title and abstract of no more than 150 words.
  • A statement of no more than 500 words regarding the learning objective(s) for the work nominated, the target audience, and how sustainability has been incorporated.
  • No more than 10 pages of supporting material (lab handout, class activity handout, descriptive materials, etc.).

Submission of materials for consideration will be viewed as a commitment by the individual or group to give a presentation at the ACS Meeting if the work submitted is selected for recognition, and to allow the presentation to be posted on the ACS website.

Sponsor

ACS Committee on Environment and Sustainability

Past Recipients 

Contact Information

Questions about the recognition program can be directed to:
Dr. Jane Wissinger 
CES Awards Program Chair
Email: jwiss@umn.edu
Phone: 612-625-9586

Related Opportunities

  • Regional Awards for Excellence in High School Teaching Recognizing, encouraging, and stimulating outstanding teachers of high school chemistry in the ACS Regions.

  • Green Chemistry Student Chapter Award Providing national recognition for ACS student chapters who have shown outstanding commitment to incorporating green chemistry into their annual activities.

  • Career Achievement in Green Chemistry Education This award, co-sponsored by the ACS Green Chemistry Institute and Committee on Environmental Improvement will be given to a pedagogical innovator who has shown consistent creativity and innovation in the classroom, laboratory, and broader chemistry enterprise. Only instructors with a significant, impactful body of work will be considered for this award which is meant to acknowledge career-long contributions to the application of green chemistry in all aspects of education. The award will consist of a plaque, a $5,000 honorarium, and travel support for the awardee (up to $2,500) to attend the annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference to receive the award and speak at an invited symposium programmed in their honor.

  • Data Science and Modeling for Green Chemistry The Data Science and Modeling for Green Chemistry award aims to recognize the research and development of computational tools that guide the design of sustainable chemical processes and the execution of green chemistry that demonstrates compelling environmental, safety, and efficiency improvements over current technologies in the pharmaceutical industry and its allied industrial partners.