DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10070171

Summary
The paper argues that the commercial use of silanes, and organically modified silanes to protect the built environment from deterioration and, in indoor applications, to minimize water vapor condensation and microbiological contamination can be adopted as a systems-thinking view of this green chemistry technology. Authors firstly identify the key advantages of these coatings and subsequently they highlight important educational consequences to undergraduate courses and doctoral programs in chemistry and materials science well beyond nanocoating science and technology.
In the context of both technical advances and the trend of sustainability, that it is likely to bring accelerated change in the chemical industry, it is necessary to provide chemistry professionals with updated education of practical value on silane-based protective coatings through which they may explain the advantages of these coatings to customers in the industry seeking their advice. This implies the need to reshape today’s undergraduate courses in materials chemistry to encompass those practical aspects of sol-gel science and technology.
Therefore, chemistry education should be reformed and enhanced to actually include contemporary research outcomes, connectivity tools, and visualization resources with immediate benefits for society. A systems view of education, considering the university as a system whose purpose is defined from the perspective of students, suggests reshaping educational programs and teaching methodologies around what matters to students, and not to professors.
Adopting a systems view such as that proposed in this paper, has substantial benefits for students, university educators, and society at large that will greatly benefit from their mass-scale uptake for the protection of the built environment and the general well-being.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The paper deals with systems thinking. Authors claim that the use of chemical, environmentally friendly coatings such as organically modified silanes should be part of a systems thinking approach for the protection of the built environment that encompasses several players (the construction industry, coating suppliers, chemistry professionals, and chemistry and engineering educators) in order to develop new knowledge and skills that effectively support working and living in safe and healthy buildings, promoting well-being.

Point of Strength
The strength of the publication is the proposed system view of a chemical technology in the context of both chemical education reform and the trend of sustainability.