Order 611936: Project paper

This page of instructions is also an assignment portal where you will submit your team's final paper and PowerPoint by the end of Week 13, Monday, November 13, 2017. EACH of you should submit a copy of the group's final paper and PowerPoint here. (If there are problems, let me know).

 

Note: If I need to add anything to this list of instructions, I will mark it as an UPDATE like I do elsewhere in the class.

 

Instructions:

So far, we have learned about:

· Bhopal, India and methyl isocyanate,

· the Exxon Valdez oil spill,

· Kingston, Tenn. and the TVA coal ash spill,

· the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion, and

· the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Because we have already discussed these, there will be other topics to choose from for your project from the list below:

You will work as teams to build a presentation and a paper describing a complete environmental compliance program evaluation of some other environmental disasters and their consequences (100 points). 

  

The summary of Long Road to Recovery, The Community Responses to Industrial Disaster, edited by James K. Mitchell at  http://unu.edu/publications/books/long-road-to-recovery-the-community-responses-to-industrial-disaster. html  describes seven industrial disasters between 1949 and 1989:

· Minamata, Japan - Mercury poisoning

· Centralia, Pennsylvania, USA - Underground mine fires

· Seveso, Italy - Airborne dioxin release

· Bhopal, India - Poison gas cloud

· Chernobyl, Ukraine - Nuclear reactor fire and meltdown

· Iran - Destruction of oil facilities during the war with Iraq

· Alaska, USA - Exxon Valdez oil spill

 

Since 1989, we have had more disasters:

· Fukushima, Japan - Earthquake and tsunami resulting in meltdowns at the Nuclear Power Plant 

· Gulf of Mexico - BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill

· Kuwait - Oil fields set fire during the Gulf War of 1991

· Nigeria - Niger Delta oil pipeline explosions and spills ongoing since 1970

· Ecuador - Texaco run-off system contaminates Amazon River

In the Rolling Stone magazine (yes, even the Rolling Stone covers this) talks about environmental disasters in an article from April 2014:

5 recent underreported environmental disasters: devastating toxic events are the new normal, by Coco McPherson

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/pictures/5-recent-underreported-environmental-disasters-20140407

 

She lists:

· Galveston Bay, Texas, USA - two ships collide, dumping 170,000 gallons of heavy marine fuel

· Lake Michigan, Indiana, USA - BP oil spill

· Ohio, USA - Pipeline oil leaked into a nature preserve

· West Virginia, USA - Elk River chemical spill

These were not in the introduction, but are in the photo essays:

· Dan River, North Carolina, USA - Coal ash spill

· West, Texas, USA - Fertilizer plant explosion

· Mayflower, Arkansas, USA - Exxon Mobil Pegasus pipeline spill 

If you would prefer to write about another industrial environmental disaster than the ones in the Discussion Board Forum for Group Projects, check with me. Sadly, there are more in the news all the time.

Step #1: Select your topic from the Discussion Board for Group Projects and form groups: 

You will work in groups/teams. I have made a Thread in the Discussion Board Forum for each of the disasters you can choose.  There are 18 students in this class. Reply to the Thread of the subject team you would like to join. For this Forum, you can see what has been posted before you post.

There should be 2 to 3 students in each group. If a group already has 3, join another. 

 

Note: As much as students dislike group work, especially online, it is something you will not only need to do, but you will need to excel at during your careers. I have had to do it many times while working for a consulting company.

   

Step #2: As a group:

Use the Group Project forum and threads to communicate with your team members. Research the event and its consequences, and learn about the resulting environmental rules that were formed as a result.

 

Step 3: Write a 10-15 page paper (double-spaced) and prepare a supporting PowerPoint presentation (15-20 slides) about your chosen incident.

To do this, you will need the environmental compliance knowledge you are gaining during the semester. You will use it to describe a complete environmental evaluation of the historic environmental disaster you chose.

· Describe,

· analyze,

· explain,

· predict, and

· prepare.

I expect equal participation by all students, with grad students taking a leadership role.

 

Format:

All assigned papers must be submitted in MS Word format and presentations in PowerPoint format. All assignments will be assessed for APA formatted references and citations, neatness, spelling, and grammar as well as technical content. 

  

A possible outline for your paper and PowerPoint (use some, all, or your own versions appropriate to your topic):

  

· Set the stage: Describe the history, background, location, map (opportunity for images in the PPT)

· Explain the decisions made and actions taken that lead to the incident

· State the problem: What happened? (images in the PPT)

· Describe the environmental impacts (human, land, air, water, etc.) (images in the PPT)

· Explain the cleanup, decontamination and/or restoration necessary and its current status (images in the PPT)

· Resulting laws, legislation, standards, guidelines, changes

· Suggest appropriate technology that could have prevented this disaster

· Appropriate steps to mitigate the problem, safety measures to keep it from happening again (monitoring, administrative and engineering controls) (images in the PPT)

· Suggestions for improvement and ways to avoid future environmental problems

· Conclusions / Summary

· References in APA format (include references for facts and for images in the PPT)

 

Use the Group Project forum and threads to communicate with your team. I expect equal participation by all the members of each team. Everyone researches, everyone writes, and be sure to write down your sources as you find them. Your goal is to inspire as well as coordinate with each other.

 

Everyone should have something to work on for the project each week in order to accomplish a little bit each week. A variation on a Creighton Adams quote: How do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time. (From:  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/creightona207381.html ) What I mean by this is that if you work on this early and often, it will be easy and you’ll learn something. The longer you wait, and the closer you get to the last week, the more difficult and unpleasant it could become. For example, you would not want to assign all research to one person who might end up procrastinating so long that everyone ends up panicking (trust me, this has happened all too often). Also, one person only doing illustrations is not enough for a good grade.

 

https://library.ucmo.edu/  is full of great resources. Online peer-reviewed journal subscriptions are a click away. Log in with your Blackboard ID/password to access them. Chat with the Reference desk for help. I have a writing and citing document in the course information page in the menu at the left. The Writing Center has online helps and can be reached for help at  https://www.ucmo.edu/ae/writing/  

 

Week 13:

Step 4: Submit a copy of your team's final paper and PowerPoint here (in this portal) by the end of Week 13, Monday, November 13, 2017. EACH of you should submit a copy of the group's final paper and PowerPoint here.

Once I grade the PowerPoints, I will post all your PowerPoints in a folder for you to read to prepare for the class final. I plan to develop some questions for the final from your PowerPoints.

 

Make me proud!

  

Note: Each graduate student is also required to write a paper using environmental leadership articles from peer-reviewed EHS journals. Graduate papers should be at least 10 pages and will be submitted in a separate portal where you will find more detailed instructions (100 points).