EFS Profiles Incorporating Environmental Issues into Teaching: The Chlorine Controversy Second Nature Boston, Massachusetts Purpose: Curriculum Change Please note that the copyright for this profile is retained by the institution. Chlorine is a naturally occurring element used extensively by humans to purify water, bleach paper and wood pulp, and produce household bleaching agents. It is also used with various organic compounds to form about 11,000 different chlorinated organic compounds, many of them widely used in daily life. These compounds are persistent, and accumulate in body fat. Evidence suggests that they have negative impacts on human and wildlife health, including infertility, impaired childhood development, immune suppression, and cancer. These negative impacts on human and environmental well-being have led many environmentalists and scientists to urge, often quite vehemently, for manufactured chlorine compounds to be banned worldwide. At a Second Nature workshop on Education for Sustainability, representatives from the Chlorine Chemistry Council and from Greenpeace debated the use of chlorine compounds in society. After a brief question and answer period, participants were given 15 minutes to individually brainstorm how each of them could incorporate the chlorine controversy into classes that they were currently teaching. Below are edited excerpts of some of the strategies faculty devised. Administrator: Dan Vertrees Institution: Tuskegee University Job: Educational Personnel Administration Within the personnel administration function is the responsibility for protection and stability of human resources, and I see a possibility for teaching potential personnel administrators: to see specifically what and where chlorine is used within the school district, and how people are impacted by that; to determine what short term decisions might have an impact, such as changing the paper used in their department; and to do a risk assessment with critical analysis. Instructor: Geoff Chase Institution: Northern Arizona University Course: Critical Reading and Writing in the University Community (required for first and second year students) I would have students review what has been written about chlorine and begin to identify the various stakeholders and the presentation of their arguments. Students would share this information with each other, and develop a strategic model for approaching the problem of what they would need to know, who they would need to talk to, how they went about evaluating arguments, information, etc. Then what steps would they want to take: who would they want to meet with? Instructor: Joan Jamieson Institution: Northern Arizona University Course: Introduction to Linguistics I would introduce this issue in the sociolinguistic part of the course, and I would use either conversational analysis or discourse analysis. Students would use conversational analysis to look at things like pauses, use of vocabulary items, particular syntactic structures, use of "I" and passive voice, of how people are trying to persuade, hedge, show facts, etc. I might also take a look at a more historical approach, in particular an environmental argument that changed over time, such as industry's changing position over time, and show again, with that same framework, structures that were used as the stance changed, i.e. different choices of lexical items to show facts as the facts change. Instructor: Beverly Wright Institution: Xavier University Course: Introduction to Sociology This is really easy. This topic lends itself to sociology. I'd bring some scientists in because it would be a lot better if we had some technical experts when we discuss this. Then, I'd go on with, to an extent, my regular syllabus, the difference being that instead of one theme throughout the course, I would pick a case or a topic that deals with race and equity relations. I would pick the case of chlorine in our society. The beginning lectures are structured around the theoretical areas of sociological theory. There are three basic ones -- structural functionalism, conflict theories, and symbolic interactionism. All three allow for you to use an example of how society has influenced some value or some system or some structure, or whatever it is. We would also do group projects, and we will include films, and we will bring in experts and community people. With the chlorine issue, the project could easily be made up of students of different groups who would act as specific stakeholders and then explain to the class all the issues that relate to chlorine for that particular point of view or that perspective. Instructor: Fatemeh Shafiei Institution: Clark Atlanta University Course: American Government I would use chlorine and assign the readings you've given me, and then ask the students the question of how could the banning of chlorine become law. The students would then represent various interest groups. They would play a role, and represent the interests of public opinion and regulatory agencies. We would also have environmentalists and industry, lobbyists, media, and EPA, and scientists, and their position. I would ask the [mock] Congress to make a decision, to hold a hearing and try to resolve all these interest groups and make a law concerning chlorine, taking into consideration all those conflicting demands before they pass that law. Based on the media coverage, then we will have public comment or picketing in front of the White House. If I teach this course as comparative government, I would use a totalitarian regime, or authoritarian regime, and a representative democracy, and then have the decision-making from that perspective. I would discuss how this controversy would be addressed in the US versus in China versus in Saudi Arabia. Then the students would learn how the decision-making is crucial and can have an impact on this controversy, and how it will be resolved. Instructor: Fatemeh Shafiei Institution: Clark Atlanta University Course: International Relations I would use the famous book "Getting to Yes", and talk about conflict resolution, and ask the students to acquaint themselves with the issues of the chlorine controversy. They would come to a real negotiating table and try out what they have learned about negotiating with industry or government. Then they would look at how they come up with a decision. I would then ask them to look at the Montreal Protocol and how it was effective in phasing out CFC's, and ask the students if there are any lessons that they could learn from that negotiation that could be applied to this controversy. Instructor: Mudiayi Ngandu Institution: Tuskegee University Course: Environmental Economics: Sustainable Development and Agriculture (audience of juniors, seniors and graduate students) From what I heard this morning, I'm interested in the alternatives to chlorine that are being considered. I would have students developing papers first. I'd like to put a chemist or environmental student and agriculture student working on these papers. Just a basic literature search to find out what the situation is and the economic feasibility. This would initially be a group paper for two students. There is a final course paper that we use as a strategy to develop research ideas to be done by students. If things work out, that may turn into a thesis on just the economics of chlorine. What do we know on how economically feasible some of these alternatives are? Of course, they would have to be identified. The other thing we would talk about would be how can we improve the role of the community in policy-making? Since it's done by area, I'm likely to have Beverly [Wright] come in to do a lecture on that in my class. You know, how can we make the voice of the community heard in both the search for these alternatives, on the resources to be spent to find out about these alternatives, and the direction of research. Beverly, with her environmental justice background, works on similar areas, and I would like her to think through the chlorine issue and see how that could be done based on her experience. So I would like to bring in an outside speaker consultant that could have input into this class. Instructor: Norman Munroe Institution: Florida International University Class: Materials Science for Engineers This is a core course that all engineers must take. Basically this course deals with comparing properties of metals, composites, polymers, etc. So I have the opportunity of talking about chlorine as one of the elements that is present in composites and in polymers. I could talk about CFCs and underground storage tanks, leaking underground storage tanks, and the substitution of plastic tanks and composite tanks, and that's a lot of environmental issues I think I can bring in there. A topic that I cover is bonding: why atoms come together. I would want to point out that you have metals and non-metals, and they're on extreme opposites ends of the periodic table. Chlorine and fluorine are extremely electronegative, and that's why they're highly reactive with metals that are on the extreme end of the periodic table. Then I would invoke chlorine as an agent of corrosion - that's another topic that's covered in materials science. The use of salt in the Northeast of the country, on roads during the winter, how it affects automobiles in terms of pitting and corrosion -- and that's because of the highly reactive nature of chlorine in forming radicals. Instructor: Abraham Weaver Institution: Florida A&M University Courses: Enviro-toxicology 1 and 2 I would begin by asking what is the environmental history and environmental science. To relate it to chlorine, we would look at what is the chemical history of chlorine, as well as the chemical toxicity of chlorine. Then we would do an impact and intervention on the natural, human, as well as the health. Health does not have to be human health -- it could be health within the biota, which means actually in the ecosystem itself., and it will work itself up the food chain. Under that component, you could use bioremediation, bioaccumulation, as well as biodegradation. It could also be related to the various Federal regulations under each different component. In that section, I think Beverly [Wright] would be happy that I'd include something dealing with the environmental justice component, and that way, you'd be able to have all different aspects to get a basic understanding. Also, within the course, I would introduce a case study component. We would take something that has actually happened and have the students evaluate the case study itself, and then do a theoretical case study, and let them figure out what the problem is. Instructor: Larry Ludwick Institution: Tuskegee University Course: General Chemistry (audience of freshmen science/engineering) I'm concerned that students can locate chlorine on the periodic table; that they can talk intelligently about the differences between chlorine and chloride, organic chlorine, inorganic chlorine; that they can talk about nomenclature, properties, fate, preparation, waste disposal, all kinds of things. I want them to understand that when they say chlorine, it can mean many different things. I could bring in all kinds of implications of the use of the various kinds of chlorine compounds. I'm very heavily into content. Instructor: Babafemi Adesanya Institution: Hampton University Course: Chemical Engineering: Unit Operations This is a capstone course, where students actually get to design a chemical plant. Here, the class is composed of special projects. This special project could include asking students to take a particular chlorine-based product, to look at the process, analyze it for particular processes and areas where we could have substitution of a different product, and where we could modify the process to prevent pollution. Maybe we will reduce waste completely. Also, another possible project would be to take a group of students around campus and do a chlorine balance. They would look at the university operations and try to audit what amount of chlorine the school uses on an annual basis from a materials balance point of view. Instructor: Babafemi Adesanya Institution: Hampton University Course: Senior Chemical Engineering Seminar One possible topic would be for the students to research the social and ethical implications of the continued use of chlorine in the chemical industry. They could also look at the environmental regulations currently on the books that affect chlorine or chlorine-containing products. They could also look at the life-cycle of chlorine in drinking water , and that would include substitutes for chlorine. Instructor: Isai Urasa Institution: Hampton University Course: Environmental Analytical Chemistry (audience of seniors) We do not teach this course at the moment, so it would be the first time that we introduce it. It would be instrument intensive. We would like to try to use this course to give students an opportunity to have a hands on experience with environmental programs, chlorine being one of the materials that they would be looking at. The course will have three components: lecture, lab, and fieldwork. During the field part, students will collect environmental samples, and bring them back to the laboratory and process and analyze them. We hope that students will get an opportunity of really doing what is done, especially when we talk about impact assessment and the affect of these materials on the environment and people and so on. There are a lot of processes involved there, starting with how the sample is collected, sample and statistics, the data obtained, the statistics that go with that. They would look at the information obtained to see if there's any kind of credibility. So students will get all of that experience. We will, in some cases, develop our own methodology; in other cases, students will use methods developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, because some of these methods have already been accepted. Instructor: Croscina Crockett Institution: Xavier University Course: Clinical Chemistry (audience of juniors and seniors) In clinical chemistry, the students come to me with an excellent background. They've already had general biology, general chemistry, organic chemistry, quantitative analysis, anatomy of physiology and microbiology, so I can go directly to chlorine chemistry with them. What I would like to do if possible is to repeat or simulate some selected experiments. Then I'd like to go through the chlorine controversy. I would look at what's been done and select background information from what I've received here. Then building the chlorine controversy, I'd like them to get background information, from reading materials, from guest experts, lectures, even from their own resources. I had one very resourceful young man who was in a science summer internship at Westinghouse, Stanford, and his resource was his Mom. We would have a field trip, and possibly a case study. I'd like them to deal with a lot of issues. After looking at all the issues, I'd like to include one more thing. We have to deal with handling of hazardous materials all the time in our profession. I would like them to look at the process that was used in handling hazards in the past, and try to apply that process to moving away from this, and how to do it in an environmentally sound manner. Instructor: Nusrat Naqvi Institution: Southern University Courses: General Biology 1 and 2 (audience of primarily freshmen); Senior Graduate Seminar In 105, there is a unit on ecology, and what I intend to do is to take chlorine and the environment as a topic, and have the students choose the environment that they want to choose -- air, water, soil, home, industry -- whatever they want, and ask who is impacted, who is benefited most, who is harmed most, and how they are impacted, short-term impacts, long-term impacts, substitutions and options that we have for chlorine compounds. Students are to identify other courses that they are majoring in where they could apply the chlorine controversy, and determine how they could integrate this information into these other courses. This will be an excellent opportunity for me to impact other curriculum. The students will have to do a term paper, and a presentation at the end of this preparation. They will also tell me what other courses they can impact, so that I can then get in touch with those teachers and get the group together that we were talking about yesterday. In my senior graduate seminar, I will have them critique chlorine-related literature, and they will make presentations of what was wrong, who were the stakeholders that were not included, what are the oversights? Instructor: George Middendorf Institution: Howard University Course: Ecology (audience of Sophomores) One of the things that I've noticed is that many of the students come in without much background, or appreciation of ecology as a science. What I would do is to bring chlorine in as an applied example to demonstrate its importance in ecology, and relevance in life. I've also been interested in how one defines what constitutes a problem. When does something become a problem? How long does it become a problem, etc. So there would be a series of exercises that span the entire semester. The first part of that exercise would be for the students to describe, or define in a very abstract manner, their own perceptions of what constitutes a problem. Then, what constitutes an ecological problem. That would be a group activity. I would then undertake a discussion of biomonitoring, biomonitoring techniques, and applications of biomonitoring to study. That presentation would be followed by a case study discussion and implications of the uses and importance of chlorine in today's society. I would not only present some of the ecological problems associated with chlorine, but some of the benefits we derive from chlorine as well. Then to ecology. A discussion of the effects in the aquatic environment, discussion of some of the hormonal-mimicking effects of chlorine. And those would involve special case study presentations and discussions. After those presentations, the students would do a group activity in which they identify the stakeholders, and then they would revisit the problems, and redefine what constitutes a problem and how the problem has been defined. Finally, they would have a discussion and presentation of environmental risk assessment, and how environmental risk assessment is currently done, and that involves applications of stakeholder positions and further role-playing and discussion and application of information that they've garnered. Instructor: Jack Parker Institution: Florida International University Course: Environmental Pollution I would incorporate this issue into an environmental pollution course that I'm teaching, and obviously there, it is already a related topic. I think what I would do is begin to adopt the case study approach, and do something else that I was thinking of this morning. My challenge is not that people need to understand everything, but rather the problem of apathy. So what I would do is use a case study to get the two sides actually doing some role playing, and then teach the students about the issues, so they can discuss and debate them. After role-playing, I'd have them take the opposite view of what they themselves believe. So if they think of themselves as environmentalists, they would become an industry spokesman, etc. And then, they would learn how we can incorporate the process of looking at stakeholders and seeing if we can resolve the chlorine issues. Then, they would discuss some policy implications, whereas right now, the course emphasizes the science of environmental pollution.
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