Teaching Sustainability in the Chemistry Classroom: Exploring Fuel Cells in Simple Hands-on Experiments with Hydrogen, Sugar and Alcohol

Rebecca Grandrath¹ and Claudia Bohrmann-Linde^1,

¹Department of Chemistry Education, University of Wuppertal, Gaußstr, 20, 42119 Wuppertal, Germany

Cite this paper

Rebecca Grandrath and Claudia Bohrmann-Linde. Teaching Sustainability in the Chemistry Classroom: Exploring Fuel Cells in Simple Hands-on Experiments with Hydrogen, Sugar and Alcohol. World Journal of Chemical Education. 2019; 7(2):172-178. doi: 10.12691/WJCE-7-2-17

Abstract

Energy transition is one of the main global challenges of this century. To realize it and reach the UN´s ecological sustainability goals the topic sustainable energy and different ways of approaching energy transition have to be taught at school. As fuel cells can play a key role in the energy turnaround, they should be an integral part in chemistry education. Here we present a series of hands-on experiments focusing on alkaline, microbial and direct methanol fuel cells to help pupils understand how fuel cells work.

Keywords

alkaline fuel cell, direct methanol fuel cell, microbial fuel cell, yeast, low-cost materials, hands-on experiments, digital learning tool, education for sustainable development, energy transition, sustainability

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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