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Various international perspectives from selected regions where substantial work is being done on green and sustainable chemistry education emphasize a systems thinking framework. Common to most of the perspectives is the inclusion of more global paradigms involving economic, environmental, political, and social aspects as fundamental issues in the formerly merely technical and scientific discussions, as well as the development of laboratory experiences, training sessions, written materials, discussion meetings, and conferences. We include bird’s eye views from Europe (the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence at the University of York, United Kingdom; the University of Cordoba, Spain; and the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands), Latin America (the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina, and the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico), Africa (the University of Venda, South Africa), and Australia (Monash University).

The level of science skills in Spanish students are significantly below the average of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and university teachers agree that the level of freshmen students’ skills is too low. Moreover, the number of engineering enrollments has been declining in recent years. The purpose of this study is to improve both the level of knowledge and skills of students upon entrance into engineering programs and their general opinion about engineering studies. The aim is to establish the importance of proper coordination between groups involved in the overall educational process and to avoid, at least in part, the decline in recent engineering enrollments. The project had the following four phases: (1) determination of the freshmen’s weakest concepts; (2) assessment of high schools students’ knowledge; (3) development of educational activities; and (4) re-assessment of high school students. These measures were complemented with the high school teachers’ opinions about the students improvements and analyses of the evolution of engineering enrollments. Most of the participants significantly improved their knowledge and skills. Similarly, high school teachers believed that the attitude of the students toward engineering improved significantly.