There in the back of the lecture hall Thursday, one had eased his leg onto the chair in front of him, trying to get comfortable. The other plunked the keys of his laptop, wandering through his e-mail inbox.
At the front of the room, having proved his point about the energy potentials of hydrogen, uranium and gasoline, and sunlight, associate professor of chemistry Dr. Mark C. Lonergan said now, “for really no good reason, we’re going to blow up the hydrogen in this balloon.”
Both of the men in the back sat up straight and stuck their fingers in their ears. A flame inched toward the red rubber of the balloon and – BANG!
The fireball flared, and as it faded both men were left smiling and laughing along with the rest of the class.

But the men in the back of the class weren’t ordinary students. They didn’t have to do the weekly homework or take the midterms or even the final. They were Dr. David R. Tyler and Dr. James E. Hutchison, University professors of chemistry with focuses in plastics and nanotechnology, respectively, and they are two of the class’ six teachers.
Chemistry of sustainability is itself an experiment. The brainchild of assistant department head Dr. Julie A. Haack, Chemistry 113 is new, gen-ed satisfying chemistry class designed for non-majors. Its six professors each give between two and four lectures each on different chemical solutions to environmental challenges.
Almost all the 88 students showed up that day – a legitimate achievement in a 100-level lecture class on a sunny May afternoon – and hands raised to ask and answer questions at a steady clip.
After establishing that making energy sustainable is one of the central challenges of our times, Lonergan moved through definitions of energy terms and graphs of global energy use to addressing national oil consumption. Each Oregonian per capita uses 52 barrels of oil per year, Lonergan said, and to illustrate the size of a barrel of oil he held up a Playmobil man and a Playmobil barrel that came to just above his little plastic waist.
Americans represent 5 percent of the world’s population and use 25 percent of all energy produced, he said – a whopping 100 quadrillion British thermal units each year.
And because global trade is increasing, China is industrializing and demand in the United States is staying steady. Lonergan said, “it’s just going to keep going up and up and up.”
After breaking down what kinds of energy there are, which kinds the United States uses and where they come from (about 70 percent domestic, about 30 percent foreign and overall about 85 percent from fossil fuels), Lonergan broke out the candy. He asked a student to put different sources of energy in order of effectiveness, including that from the calories of a king-size Snickers bar.
To prove that energy is power multiplied by time, he had two students run up the sets of stairs at each side of the hall with two students timing them. Lonergan punched the distance, the time and both the runners’ weights into an equation to find out how many watts they consumed. Presumably to make up for that energy consumption, Lonergan gave them both candy bars, and for their trouble he gave the timers candy, too.
The department has been pleased with the multiple professor approach. Each of the professors teaches the class for free, Haack said, and it helps the professors work together, communicate better and give the students multiple scientific perspectives on the “complex issue” of sustainability. Haack hopes to expand into other departments, eventually creating a sustainability class with not only chemistry professors, but also professors from architecture, business and economics.
Hutchison and Tyler like the six-professor system as well.
Not only is it “bringing the faculty together in a really interesting way,” Tyler said, “but it’s a lot easier to teach a new class when you only have to prepare a couple weeks of the curriculum.”
Beyond that, Tyler, Hutchison and Haack each said they’re personally excited about the project: “We’re all pumped up,” Tyler said.
“As far as I know, nobody else is doing a class like this in the country,” Hutchison said.
“It’s cool,” he added. “In a word, it’s cool.”
Haack pointed out freshman French major Bryan Holmes as a student who participated in class often. Holmes, who earned candy as a timer, said the six professors are his “favorite part” of the class.
“That’s what really excited me on the first day,” he said.
Environmental sustainability is a “very, very important thing,” Holmes added.
In the far back corner of the hall, a few rows behind Tyler and Hutchison, sophomore psychology major McLane Muller said he’s “not too good with chemistry,” and the class is “tougher than I expected.”
But still, he said, it’s a lot better than his geology class.
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