In this program students will investigate pollutants in water and soil to understand their impact on the environment. Through two case studies investigating a chemical spill and organic fruit production, students will explore how pollutants migrate through the environment and analyse environmental samples to understand the potential hazards to human health and the environment.

Students will apply concepts like point source and diffuse pollution, environmental hazards, stakeholder impact, environmental sampling, toxicity and Victorian environmental regulatory frameworks; while utilising specialist laboratory equipment to prepare and analyse soil and shellfish samples.

Warning: This program includes analysis of shellfish tissue. Attending teachers must consider the risk of allergic or anaphylactic reactions to students and/or school personnel.

In this program students will:

• Build an understanding of the Victorian legal definition of pollution and harm
• Apply an environmental assessment framework to investigate the source, pathway and impacts related to a chemical spill
• Analyse the distribution of chemical spill in a waterway based on laboratory results
• Build an understanding of the sources and hazards of heavy metal pollutants
• Discuss environmental regulatory frameworks
• Evaluate strategies to reduce the risk from pollution
• Develop analytical laboratory skills

Students will:

A. Investigate a chemical spill:

• Discuss definition of pollution and how harm from pollutants relates to understanding the impacts to human health and the environment
• Investigate the environmental hazards posed by a pesticide spill and their migration pathways into the environment
• Determine the presence and concentration of pesticides in shellfish samples using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
• Collate and analyse data to build an understanding of the spread and impact from a chemical spill

B. Investigate heavy metal pollution in soil including:

• Extracting copper from soil samples
• Collect data from standard copper solutions and draw a calibration curve
• Use Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) to and their calibration curve to determine the concentration of copper in soil samples

How can we manage pollution to sustain Earth’s systems?

Pollution effects on Earth’s systems

• Chemical and physical characteristics of pollutants that influence dispersal of emissions from natural and manufactured sources
• The transport mechanisms, persistence, fate and toxicity of pollutants throughout Earth’s four interrelated systems
• The impacts of a range of pollutants on the health and survival of living things in the biosphere, including humans, and on the quality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere with reference to risk, exposure, dosage, tolerance limits, LD50, chronic and acute toxicity, allergies, disruption of system regulation and synergistic action

Managing pollution

• The contributions of scientific data, new technologies, regulatory frameworks and diverse stakeholder values and priorities when managing pollution
• Options for control and treatment of pollution to reduce local and global impacts.