Assignment:
Water Quality Event Analysis - An Environmental Justice Application
Milestone Summary: You will choose a current drinking water crisis and contamination scenario. You will act as an environmental scientist, describing the cause of the contamination, THE CHEMISTRY OF THE CONTAMINANTS, and the impacts on local communities. You will then give suggestions on how to clean up the water and prevent further crises.
Milestone Purpose:Chemistry is all around us! This milestone will allow you to apply your course content to a real-world event that affects people in the community you chose. You will analyze and explain the chemistry behind your event. In so doing, you will strengthen your knowledge base, critical thinking, and problem solving skills.
Milestone Topic: You can choose from the following categories of events to analyze. NOTE:it needs to be a real event that occurred, so you can research it and gather facts, data, and statistics on it.
• A specific oil spill (ex. the BP spill on the Deepwater Horizon)
• A specific body of water (ex. The Yellow River, The Ganges River, Lake Michigan)
• A specific area that encountered lead poisoning from drinking water (ex. Flint)
• Mercury pollution in the ocean
• Ocean acidification
• Radiation leak (ex. Fukashima)
• Industrial agriculture and a specific pollutant associated (ex. nitrates, phosphates, pesticides)
NOTE:do NOT pick a biological contaminant (like bacteria). Also, be sure you bring in discussion on the environmental justice aspect of your event (ex. the people most impacted in Flint were living in the poorest socioeconomic areas).
Structure: Students will create a 4 to 5 page research paper OR a 12-15 slide PowerPoint.