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Chemistry course corrections tackle bias

The University of York’s efforts to decolonize how chemistry is taught holds lessons for other chemistry educators.
  1. Katharine Sanderson
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Cartoon of a smoky apparition of chemist Victor Grinard fading away and being replaced by a solid molecule of an experiment

Replacing historical chemical names, such as the Grignard reagent, with descriptive ones helps to decolonize chemistry courses. Illustration by Bex Glendining

Flick through a chemistry textbook at school or university, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that chemistry — touted as the central science that connects all other physical-science fields — is the domain of almost exclusively white men. Yet chemistry has origins going back millennia — such as in the papyrus-making procedures of ancient Egyptians, Chinese medicine and distillation methods developed in early Arab cultures. Contributions to modern chemistry are truly global, meaning that low- and middle-income countries can take advantage of chemical advances in areas such as agriculture and medicine as they seek to develop their economies.

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Nature 615, 359-361 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00644-7

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