Introductory undergraduate earth science course for non-majors

1. Risk assessment and toxicology
2. Air, soil and water pollution
3. Environmental regulation (especially CERCLA and SARA)
4. Environmental remediation

It is a stand-alone project situated towards the end of the semester

Understand and apply factual knowledge on risk assessment, toxicology, environmental pollution of the three main media and the movement of pollutants in the environment.

Analyze and evaluate procedural and conditional knowledge e.g. make decisions about the methods used to clean up Superfund sites in their hometowns and propose alternate solutions.

Students must navigate these following websites:
1. EPA Superfund and National Priorities List
2. NJ DEP Known Contaminated Sites List
3. Agency for toxic substances and disease registry (ATSDR)
4. USGS Toxics Hydrology Program

In this exercise, students must navigate their hometowns and find the nearest superfund site to their homes (there is no shortage of superfund sites in NJ - 114 of the 1200 sites in the US are found in NJ). They then evaluate the information provided by the NPL websites to determine the activities that led to the pollution of the sites, the type of pollutants at the site and their transformation in soil and water. They then deal with risk assessment issues and describe the main health threats posed by those pollutants. An understanding of soil and pollutant chemical properties is then required to evaluate the efficacy of the remediation technologies used at that site. Each student is required to suggest at least one alternative remediation technology (physical, chemical, biological or thermal).

The grading rubric consists of questions that address each of the areas the students are instructed to cover e.g. risk assessment, pollutant release and transformation, health impacts, justification of remediation technology selected.

www.epa.gov
www.state.nj.us/dep
www.usgs.gov
www.atsdr.cdc.gov