Island Fever:

Using Practical Chemistry in Environmental Medicine

Robert Blume

July 30, 2001

This paper is submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements of ED 5550 and ED 5602,

Special Topics in Education

Island Hopping Across the Curriculum

Michigan Technological University

In addition to the “Bottle Biology” collaborative experiment lesson, I am also going to borrow a page from a fellow ESMIS participant, Mike Dallavalle's, book of chemistry lessons.  It is very likely that it will not be instituted in the fall of 2001, but it would not have been instituted at all had it not been for the ESMIS class.

Overview

I will serve as a lawyer who responds, to complaints from the inhabitants of a small town suffering from a rare medical condition; in the spirit of the movie A Civil Action starring John Travolta as just such a lawyer.  The town blames the old fertilizer production facility (in tune with Armada's farming roots), but the owners, a large corporation now, deny everything.  The students' firms are bidding against their competition, fellow groups of students, to do the investigation and clean up my office pursues.

The students will be given a sample of the soil taken from the site of the old plant, and will have to determine if there is contamination, and what chemical caused it.  In this way they will have to practically apply what often/usually amounts to cookbook procedures in order to determine the contaminating chemical.  When they have determined the causative chemical, they will put together a presentation using any of the various forms of media available to them to try to sell their idea to my firm so that we will hire them.  

Objectives

At the end of this lesson, the students will be able to:

1.  Apply known chemistry techniques to analyze and identify an unknown substance.

2.  Present findings professionally to a group of townspeople (played by fellow students, or parents, or actual Armada residents).

3.  Describe and justify their attitudes toward environmental regulations.

Plan

-I will have an environmental lawyer and a representative from an office of an environmental cleaning company come speak to the kids about the work that their companies do.  I will also try to get a representative from the DEQ or EPA to do likewise.  

-I will introduce myself as a lawyer (maybe a paralegal) representing a law office looking to receive bids from companies comprised of 4 to 5 students for an environmental investigation and clean-up job.  

-I will give the students unknown samples of a chemical in a washed sand base versus grabbing soil from the school grounds which may very well already be contaminated.

-After they have determined the unknown, they will work on their bids that will be presented to a panel of townspeople.

Assessment

Students will be assessed based on two things: 1. Their ability to determine the unknown, by whatever means is necessary.  Full points for doing so independently using books.  ¾ points for doing it with my assistance once.  ½ for doing it with my assistance twice.  ¼ with my assistance three times.  No points if I help them more than three times.  

*Help is defined as offering assistance with procedure or information about chemistry concepts.

2. They will also be assessed based on a rubric (to be constructed later) defining criteria for professionalism, media use, presentation, and accuracy.

Benchmarks

This assignment will satisfy the Michigan Curriculum High School Level Benchmarks of C-2, C-4, C-5, R-1, R-3, R-5, R-6, LEC-6, PME-1, PCM-1, and EG-2.