The modern world can be described as a globalized risk society. It is characterized by increasing complexity, unpredictable consequences of techno-scientific innovations and production, and its environmental consequences. Therefore, chemistry, just like many other knowledge areas, is in an ongoing process of environmentalization. For example, green chemistry has emerged as a new chemical metadiscipline and movement. The philosophy of green chemistry was originally based on a suggestion of twelve principles for environment-friendly chemistry research and production. The present article problematizes limitations (...) in green chemistry when it comes to education. It argues that the philosophy of green chemistry in the context of education needs to be extended with socio-critical perspectives to form educated professionals and citizens who are able to understand the complexity of the world, to make value-based decisions, and to become able to engage more thoroughly in democratic decision-making on sustainability issues. Different versions of sustainability-oriented science/chemistry education are discussed to sharpen a focus on the most complex type, which is Bildung-oriented, focusing emancipation and leading to eco-reflexive education. The term eco-reflexive is used for a problematizing stance towards the modern risk society, an understanding of the complexity of life and society and their interactions, and a responsibility for individual and collective actions towards socio-ecojustice and global sustainability. The philosophical foundation and characteristics of eco-reflexive science education are sketched on in the article. (shrink)

A new chronology is introduced to address the history of chemistry, with educational purposes, particularly for the end of the twentieth century and here identified as the fifth chemical revolution. Each revolution are considered in terms of the Kuhnian notion of ‘exemplar,’ rather than ‘paradigm.’ This approach enables the incorporation of instruments, as well as concepts and the rise of new subdisciplines into the revolutionary process and provides a more adequate representation of such periods of development and consolidation. The fifth (...) revolution developed from 1973 to 1999 and is characterized by a deep transformation in the very heart of chemistry. That is to say, the size and type of objects, the way in which they must be done and the time in which they are transformed. In one way or another, chemistry’ limits had been set out. (shrink)