Climate Across the Curriculum Case Study: Chemistry, Nabilah Carlon

October 7, 2022

Nabilah Carlon, Chemistry

Teaching Professor • Senior Instructor • 2019-2020 Faculty Fellow

University of Colorado Boulder Chemistry Professor, Nabilah Carlon, attended the 2022 Climate Across the Curriculum workshop in the summer of 2022. Below is her testimonial of how incorporating climate into her chemistry classes went after participating in the training!

Initial Reaction

“I learned so much from these workshops! I cannot wait to present many of the topics covered on climate change as well as engage with students with an open heart.”

In the Classroom

In Carlon’s CHEM 1113 (General Chemistry 1, Fall 2022), there are approximately 800 students enrolled. The majority of the students are incoming freshman. There are at least three areas in the course she is incorporating learnings from the Climate Across the Curriculum workshops:

  • From Daryl Maeda’s presentation about our sustainable futures and the common curriculum, she presented how the common curriculum values align with the learning objectives of her course. This was done on the first day of class.
  • When they discuss common reaction types in class, she will introduce greenhouse gases. This will tie in directly with the course as we will be exploring combustion reactions and CO2 is a product of the reaction.
  • In Chapter 6, they discuss energy and the different forms of energy and she believes this would be a great time to introduce renewable energy sources and touch on many of the ideas presented by Charles Kutscher.
  • She will also encourage my CHEM 1113 students to attend the Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit and offer the many opportunities made possible by Mission Zero. In addition, I will advertise about the Climate Action Ambassador Team and the Student Athletes for Climate Change.

In the spring semester, Carlon will be teaching General Chemistry 2 and would like to talk about the ozone hole when we discuss reaction rates and catalysts in class. This course also presents another opportunity to discuss electric vehicles when we delve into the unit on electrochemistry.

Posted in Climate Across the Curriculum and tagged , , , ,