	Home > Climate & Energy > Profile Sheets: Green Denmark > Is your environment healthy? > Case: Chemistry for teenagers

CLIMATE & ENERGY

Profile Sheets: Green Denmark

Energy efficiency – do you realize the potential?

How can we fight global warming locally?

How do we fuel sustainable growth?

How stable is your energy supply?

Is clean water an issue?

Is your environment healthy?

What makes technology eco-efficient?

What’s waste worth to you?

Where does your energy come from?

Will Copenhagen still be wonderful in 2015?

Send

Case: Chemistry for teenagers

In spring 2003, the Danish Government published Denmark’s first strategy and action plan to protect the public’s health against environmental threats. The new strategy emphasised that special efforts would be made to protect vulnerable groups in society such as pregnant women, children and the elderly. Denmark has since implemented several initiatives, one of which is Chemical Days – an educational website targeted at teenagers.

Chemical Days is a website with educational material aimed at 13-15 year olds, developed by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency to provide knowledge about the chemicals that have an impact on both the teenagers themselves in their daily lives, and the environment.

Free service
The website material is suitable for interdisciplinary teaching involving for example chemistry, physics and social studies, and is available free of charge in both Danish and English. Graphically and linguistically, Chemical Days has been designed to appeal to a target group who tend to view chemistry as a heavy and theoretical subject.

Chemical Days was developed in close cooperation with teachers of 13-15 year olds and tested by students in a Danish school.

Interactive
The website’s key page is the interactive teenage room, which features 11 products, including a shampoo and a mobile telephone, that the user can click on. A window then opens with a description of the chemicals that have been used to make the product. The room also has a bookcase with nine books, comprising information on a number of relevant subjects, and a globe featuring environmentally-related facts on a number of European countries.

Chemical Days comprises:

Teacher’s guide
11 teenage cards
Product pages
Experiments
Chemistry quiz
Cut-out sheet

Through discussion and exercises facilitated by a teacher, teenagers can learn about a range of chemicals and what they are used for. Chemical Days also shows youngsters how to distinguish between the necessary and unnecessary use of chemicals in consumer products, and they can learn also about eco-labelling and EU policy.

The site will be updated in spring 2008 in order to ensure that the latest developments are covered.

Related article: What makes technology eco-efficient?
Collaboration and partnerships between companies, universities, research institutions and public authorities is crucial to the development of new eco-efficient technologies.