Addressing the hazard blind spot in chemistry education

Chemistry underpins most of our modern world, from the agricultural chemistry that brings us food to the materials science that delivers homes, clothes, and energy. But when we train chemists, we do it with a curriculum that misses a critical need of modern chemists—understanding the human health and environmental impacts of the chemicals we use.

“My undergraduate chemistry course work never even mentioned chemical hazards.”
— Teresa McGrath, Chief Research Officer, Habitable

Students who go on to work in science, engineering, design, or policy need to understand chemical hazards in order to do their jobs responsibly, but any discussion of chemical hazards tends to be reserved for specialized electives like environmental chemistry, biochemistry, or toxicology. Habitable’s Pharos database fills this gap in modern chemistry education, while also making the concept accessible for other disciplines that make choices about materials.

Pharos is the industry’s most comprehensive, independent database on chemicals, polymers, metals and their associated human and environmental health hazards. It curates data on over 200,000 chemicals, using hundreds of authoritative sources, and translates the data into simple terms (like high, moderate or low concern) for 25 hazard traits (like carcinogenicity or bioaccumulation potential). Pharos teaches you to use it as you go, with tooltips to make new users comfortable, comparison tools, and even a discussion board for users. The result is a database that translates complex toxicological and regulatory data into a format that’s accessible even for non-experts—like students.

The ease with which Pharos can be picked up has led to scientific advances across a range of academic fields. It’s been cited hundreds of times in the academic literature, including studies on chemical exposure from building materials, surfactants for a PFAS-free floor polish, and safer lithium-ion batteries.   With tools like a powerful search bar, sharing chemical comparisons, and the ability to download datasets, Pharos is a reliable research companion. 

Maybe the most interesting benefit of all is that Habitable offers free scholarship access for academic researchers and students, making the tool affordable no matter what part of the world you’re in.

Scholarship access for faculty and students makes it possible to use Pharos in the classroom at no cost. Some universities, like UC Berkeley, have found Pharos so useful that they’ve partnered with Habitable to make Pharos available campus-wide through their library system.
Typical uses for Pharos in a classroom setting include comparing hazards in a chemical substitution, identifying safer building materials, analysing a product’s safety profile, and understanding impacts of chemical pollution. Students and staff have even used it to make lab assignments safer, evaluating the hazards of chemicals used in current undergraduate labs and proposing alternatives.

Including Pharos in a curriculum gives students hands-on experience in making chemical decisions the way they are made in industry, rather than treating safety as an abstract rule. Comparing substances side by side helps students connect chemical structures and properties to real-world impacts, building experience in evidence-based decision making as they explore, interpret data, and think critically about trade-offs.

At the Yale School of Environment, Pharos is being applied in a mixed undergraduate/graduate course, with student backgrounds ranging from chemistry to public health and environmental management. In this setting, Pharos first helps students to understand general toxicity concepts, then drill down into individual outcomes and hazards. Instructors have seen that students find it simple to grasp and assess knowledge on chemical compounds using Pharos, even without a toxicology background. The exercise intuitively introduces students to the concept of trade-offs in chemical decision making.

“Pharos has proven to be a very helpful tool in our Fundamentals of Green Chemistry and Green Engineering class, where students use systems thinking to identify and generate truly sustainable solutions”
— Dr. Hanno Erythropel, Yale University

Pharos is also being applied in the University of Washington’s online certificate program, which professionals join to upskill in green chemistry and chemical stewardship. Instructor Cathy Rudisill says, “Pharos helped my students obtain high quality, actionable chemical hazard assessment data, which is getting increasingly difficult to obtain outside of a paywall. Chemical hazard information from SDS’s are not ideal for making safer chemical decisions. The comparison feature of Pharos helps students do a direct comparison of the hazard tables, making it easy to see data gaps and trade-offs. I know the tool has an impact, because many students will apply the Pharos outputs to other assignments, even when it’s not a requirement.”

“[Pharos is] a comprehensive and practical resource that fits directly into our curriculum. Having access to a system like this is essential to completing the objectives of the course.”
— Cathy Rudisill, course instructor at University of Washington

At Algonquin College, a pioneering undergraduate course for interior design has students use Pharos to determine health risks of materials they are proposing to use in their studio projects. Instructor Bobby Ilg has found that Pharos “makes sense of chemicals for the non-chemist”.

As we transition from a petrochemical economy to a safer, greener chemical system, hazard literacy is becoming increasingly important. The curriculum for anyone training to work with chemicals or materials must change in order to prepare responsible scientists, engineers, and designers. 

Pharos fills a critical gap in modern education for chemists as well as materials scientists, engineers, building scientists, and architects. The tool connects chemistry education and materials choices to real-world health impacts, engaging students with the consequences of chemical design without requiring a course in toxicology.

If you’d like to use Pharos in your classroom or research, fill out this form to request a Pharos scholarship.