he course project represents the summative learning experience for this course. You are required to create a fact sheet and a public service announcement presentation for the general public. The purpose of this assignment is for students to research the potential effects of the sources, transport, and fates (including chemical reactions) of a single pollutant (either organic or metal) released into the environment. From their experience throughout the course, students will be able to research the information necessary and transfer that knowledge into both written and presentation materials.
Environmental pollutants are substances introduced in the natural environment causing adverse changes, such as those that adversely impact health or cause other types of damage. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analyses environmental pollutant levels in humans, as well as food, animal feed and other environmental samples. The information gained is used for modeling exposure and health risks. In this scenario, you have been hired by the outreach department at your local EPA office with the task of educating your community on a local pollutant.
This project builds on previous assignments from weeks 1-5. In our week 1 discussion forum, we talked about how certain isotopes can impact the environment and/or living organisms. In our week 2 discussion forum, we discussed the chemical and physical properties of matter, and continued in our week 3 forum with the environmental pollutants causing acid rain. In week 1, you created an interactive presentation on physical changes and in week 3 you created a presentation on chemical changes.
Fact sheet: The fact sheet will be two pages in length and will be due at the same time as the video presentation. Students should prepare these as though they will be handouts provided during a presentation. Topics include:
What is the pollutant?
What are the fundamental properties of this pollutant to include atomic structure and/or Lewis structure?
What are the chemical and physical properties of this pollutant?
What are the main chemical reactions that this pollutant undergoes? Give examples of balanced equations.
What is this pollutant used for?
Where does this pollutant come from?
How might this pollutant affect the environment? Include any chemical reactions.
How is this pollutant transported in the environment? Include any chemical reaction as necessary.
How might exposure this pollutant affect human health?
What steps are being taken to limit the potential impacts of this pollutant?
Fact sheet will be a two-page pdf file with citations. PSA will be a video recording in which students will submit a link their recording as part of a discussion board.
Example of fact sheets are listed below:
https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/chemical_factsheets.html (Links to an external site.)
https://nj.gov/health/eoh/rtkweb/documents/fs/0367.pdf
