Communication for Peaceful Social Change and Global Citizenry

The adoption of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (UN) in 2015 represents a universal call to action involving multiple international actors for the purpose of eradicating poverty, improving living conditions and promoting peace. This entry provides a theoretical overview of the contributions of scholars and practitioners who highlight the importance of a transformative, educational and emancipatory communication by different social actors to establish the main lines of action for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This communicative model involves the coordination of actors and strategies, both short- and long-term, cross-cutting actions and discourses to build social, cultural and political settings based on the criteria of peace, equality, social justice and human rights. Specifically, this entails a contribution to the objectives set out in SDG 16, “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”, given that the proposed theoretical framework is grounded in Communication for Peace and Communication for Social Change, and includes a systematization of different strategies and experiences from a variety of social issuers, mainly institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or social movements, aimed at promoting peaceful and inclusive societies. Specifically, communication for peaceful social change and global citizenry contributes to the achievement of specific SDG 16 objectives, particularly 16.1: Significantly reduce all forms of violence... [...

“Click” and Olefin Metathesis Chemistry in Water at Room Temperature Enabled by Biodegradable Micelles

The two laboratory reactions focus on teaching several concepts associated with green chemistry. Each uses a commercial, nontoxic, and biodegradable surfactant, TPGS-750-M, to promote organic reactions within the lipophilic cores of nanoscale micelles in water. These experiments are based on work by K. Barry Sharpless (an azide–alkyne “click” reaction) and Robert Grubbs (an olefin cross-metathesis reaction); both are suitable for an undergraduate organic laboratory. The copper-catalyzed azide–alkyne [3 + 2] cycloaddition of benzyl azide and 4-tolylacetylene is very rapid: the triazole product is readily isolated by filtration and is characterized by thin-layer chromatography and melting point analysis. The ruthenium-catalyzed olefin cross-metathesis reaction of benzyl acrylate with 1-hexene is readily monitored by thin-layer chromatography and gas chromatography. The metathesis experiment comparatively evaluates the efficacy of a TPGS-750-M/water medium relative to a traditional reaction performed in dichloromethane (a common solvent used for olefin metathesis)