Environmental Health

Required Texts:

Maxwell, Nancy Irwin (2014) Understanding Environmental Health: How We Live in the Worl. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning (Web Resources), Ebook Purchase Site with Coursesmart.

Steingraber, Sandra (2011) Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis (Kindle Edition). Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press.

Course Description:

This course is designed to provide students with an introduction to and overview of the key areas of environmental health. The principal text, Understanding Environmental Health by Nancy Irwin Maxwell, takes a unique approach to presenting environmental health to students. Rather than being organized around the traditional regulatory fields (air pollution, hazardous wastes, etc.), this book is structured around the things we do as individuals and societies that result in environmental health hazards. The author details the hazards of energy production, industry, food production, and the modern lifestyle, while exploring our place within the global community.

Thereafter students have an opportunity to reflect upon the practical implications of some of the theoretical material presented in the Maxwell text by considering the perspective of environmental issues on children's health by reading portions of Sandra Steingraber's interesting narrative - Raising Elijah. Using this perspective, the course will cover factors associated with the development of environmental health problems.

Students will gain an understanding of the interaction of individuals and communities with the environment, the potential impact on health of environmental agents, and specific applications of concepts of environmental health. The course will consist of a series of lectures and will cover principles derived from core environmental health disciplines. The sequence of major topics begins with background material and “tools of the trade” (environmental epidemiology, environmental toxicology, and environmental policy and regulation). The course then covers specific agents of environmental diseases (e.g., microbial agents, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation). Finally, applications and domains of environmental health are addressed (e.g., water and air quality, food safety, waste disposal, and occupational health).

Students will be expected to become familiar with a broad range of environmental health issues to include:

Environmental Toxicology
Epidemiology & Risk Assessment
Workplace Safety
Air, Water, & Soil Pollution
Solid and Liquid Waste
Drinking Water
Health Concerns Related to Rodents & Insects
Radiation, Energy & Health
Environmental Law
Disaster Preparedness,
Pollution Monitoring and Safety Standards.

1. Attend and participate in class on a regular basis through weekly posting of homework on the course lesson board.

Class attendance is very important in this course. Class participation centers around participation in completing and posting homework and at the course's Canvas email address. Homework completion counts as 50% of the course grade. Homework completion also reflects upon the class participation grade. Students must receive permission from the instructor to miss a class. Missing (i.e. nonparticipation or inadequate participation in class activities) for 3 classes or more without instructor permission will result in students being withdrawn from the class.

Homework submitted later than 5:00 p.m. on the final date of each class session will will be considered late homework and will not be credited toward class attendance and participation. Distance learning course are considered to operate over a seven day week period.

2. Successfully complete the comprehensive examination during the class session set aside for that purpose.

The exam - accounting for 50% of the course grade and will be administered via the Canvas Email.

3. Complete all course assignments in a timely and thorough fashion and weekly post study question and homework answers to the Canbas email address.

All course assignments must be completed weekly and must include APA source documentation. Additionally, each week's assignment must include the homework question followed immediately with the student's response and all papers must include the students name, the course name, the assignment number and the date. Work failing to fully meet these criteria will receive no credit. Likewise assignments turned in late will receive no credit. The dates for each class session can be found in the course schedule located on the course home page. Distance learning course are considered to operate over a seven day week period.

NOTE: Students will be given credit for turning in their homework completely and on time. Students will be responsible for assuring that all study questions are appropriately cited and referenced using APA style. Failure to comply with these citation and reference standards will result in grade point reductions. Students are also responsible for assuring that all of their responses are accurate, since the exam will be largely based upon these study questions. The instructor will provide either one completely graded set of questions for students to refer to or will provide the answers to the discussion questions on a weekly basis. Students will be responsible for not only turning in their work on a weekly basis, but reviewing their work against the course assignment criteria as described herein.

ALL of your assigned written course work must be submitted by weekly email with a header description corresponding with the session number of the assignment. All homework must be in either Word, Rich Text format or Acrobat (.pdf) format to be graded. Any work that the instructor can’t open you won’t receive a grade on regardless of when it was submitted. It is your responsibility to insure the instructor can read all of your work. Any homework typed into the memo field of an email will be ignored and won’t be graded – period. Any attached assignment of whatever kind that is attached to an email will not be graded period. ONLY assignments that are tuned in on time which I can open will be graded. Any deviation from this practice on your part means you will not receive a grade for that assignment. If you fail to turn in assignments for three consecutive course session, or during four of the first five class sessions you will be considered a course “no show” and will be withdrawn from the course by me. Fail to turn in 4 of your homework assignments and you will have insured you fail the course.

97-100%	A+
94-96%	A
90-93%	A-
87-89%	B+
84-86%	B
80-83%	B-
77-79%	C+
74-76%	C
70-73%	C-
67-69%	D+
64-66%	D
60-63%	D-
59% and Below	F

Homework submitted later than 5:00 p.m. on the final date of the class session will will be considered late homework and will not be credited toward class attendance and participation. Distance learning course are considered to operate over a seven day week period.

NOTE: Course assignments and schedule, course objectives, and grading criteria, distributions and weights may change as circumstances dictate and at the discretion of the instructor.

Students participaing in class sessions will, on a weekly basis prepare their homework assignments and post their responses to Canvas email. All posted attachments must be in Word format. All students are required to prepare their written responses to the study questions assigned weekly. Students are responsible for being prepared to answer and explain all questions. Make sure that in naming your Word file for the homework you are posting that you use short titles and only use letters and numbers in the title. Never use the # sign in the name of a file you are postings, since the software for the lesson board can't open any file with such a symbol in it.

Typically, students should expect to spend between 6 and 9 hours of course effort weekly. Some week's assignments may entail less time investment, while other class periods may entail more effort.

I strongly encourage every student to take the time to complete the following online APA Citation and Reference Tutorial offered by Harvard University and another online APA tutorial by the American Psychological Association. One of the objectives of this class is that you learn how to use the APA documentation style. You can learn everything you need to know about how to use this method by studying the material at the following sites. Please understand that any of your discussion questions or your student presentation papers that are lacking in complete APA styled documentation will be returned to you and will not be graded until they are in order.

The instructor is available for either face-to-face or telephone consultation during office hours (Thursdays 2-5) 259 Whitaker Hall on campus. E-mail should be utilized only for the purpose of informing the instructor of difficulties in accessing information, notification of class absences, problems students are encountering in completing assignments, and other issues related to the management of the course. All homework, exam, and study questions responses should be directed to Canvas email.

Students can earn another 2% on their course grade by printing the attached SALG course evaluation form, completing it, scanning it into a pdf file and emailing it to me at twimber@comcast.net prior to April 14, 2014.