PULSE: 11th Grade - Industrialization, Chemicals and Human Health

Industrialization, Chemicals and Human Health

Advances in technology have revolutionized American life. However, accompanying these advances are new chemicals, different levels of exposure and new work conditions. How does a society maintain a safe environmental health in the work place and the home? In American history class students review the social, economic and health impacts of industry.

Lessons in chemistry support students’ understanding of physical and chemical properties of substances, molecular structure, and toxicity, while they examine the advances and consequences of the development and use of chemicals and industrialization.

Work by Carl Sandberg, Upton Sinclair as well as photographic documentation and an introduction to the Muckrakers provides a foundation for students in language arts to not only examine industrialization and its impact, but also to dip into poetic analysis, narrative writing, plus examine and write editorials.

Major Project - Wildcat Dumping, emphasizes the responsible use and disposal of chemicals by industry and targets a worldwide environmental health issues that affect many communities today. Students investigate cleanup techniques for manmade environmental health problems, learn about the role of the newspaper for informing the public, and apply their understanding of the need for chemicals in modern society. The students research the impacts of local environmental health problems on the members of society. The unit develops science and health literacy thru a variety of reading, writing, and library research activities. The students will compose a newspaper editorial, from the perspective of a community member, which exposes the effects of illegal dumping and persuades readers to take action.

Scientist Profile - Dr. Ornella Selmin

Teachers
For more information and background check out this great article
Lessons Learned? Chemical Plant Safety Since Bhopal
from Environmental Health Perspectives

Week - Connection	Chemistry	Social Studies	Language Arts	Math
Week 1 In science students are introduced to Chernobyl incident and the resulting environmental health impacts and the difference between types of ionizing radiation. Social studies will begin to look at standardization and mass production in industry, the Industrial Revolution in America, and the relationship between the business, the worker, and the landscape. In language arts students will be introduced to the poetry of Carl Sandburg who wrote during the Industrial Revolution. Students will review the units of the metric system in math.	Reactor Incident	The Parts Make up the Whole	Chalk Talk	How Big is It?
	Radioactive Isotopes	The ABCs of Industry	Sandburg Study
	Radiation Experiments	A Society of Employees	Poetic Analysis
	Toxic Milk Return	Flush it! Throw it!
Week 2 In science students will study of the environmental risks caused by burning fossil fuels and the fundamental concepts of chemistry such as the law of conservation of matter in order to understand that all of our energy choices contain a certain risk. In social studies students explore the connections between industry, pollutants and contaminants, and human health. They will be writing a piece of poetry in language arts, modeled after Carl Sandburg’s poetry, capturing the experience of a worker they know. Math will support science by helping students better understand what a concentration of one part per million.	Our Future – Nuclear Power	Pollution and Contaminants		How Small is It?
	Energy Debate - Global Warming
	Energy of a peanut	Leftovers, do you want them?	Poetry Writing
	Combustion reactions	Dangerous for Your Health
Week 3 In science students will explore how global warming will affect the earth, study the different fractions of crude oil, and draw covalent bonding diagrams for the compounds associated with the Bhopal disaster. Through social studies students will learn what industries produced during the Industrial Revolution, unfriendly labor policies, and the affects on the worker. In language arts students will see pictures of child laborers from the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s and explore some readings about these children before composing their own narrative stories based on an image of a child laborer. Math will review the process of unit analysis to convert between units of radioactivity and will examine the Chernobyl disaster.	Energy Debate – Sea Level Rise Energy Debate – Stoichiometry	Working 9-5	Slide Show	Chernobyl 1
	Energy Debate- Conclusion		The Experience of the Child Laborer
	Runaway Reaction		Narrative Nuts and Bolts
	Covalent Bonding and Molecular Geometry		Narrative Writing	Chernobyl 2
Week 4 Science classes will investigate factors that affect the rate of reaction in the context of how the chemical plant in Bhopal blew up as well as looking at TCE and the Love Canal disaster. In social studies students will investigate the regulatory reforms that began taking place during the Progressive Era due to muckraker literature. Students will read an excerpt from The Jungle as a way to expose the atrocities that took place in the meat packing industry in Chicago in language arts. Students in math will calculate the amount of everyday food products or liquids that would need to be consumed in order to experience toxic effects.	Rate of Reaction
	Conclusion
	Love Canal Trichloroethylene	EXTRA! Read about it!
			Slide Show
Week 5 In science students continue to investigate different toxins that are a part of our contemporary environment due to our highly industrialized society. Social studies classes expand on that theme by looking at how internationalized industries are. Students in language arts compare working conditions for adult laborers during the Industrial Revolution to contemporary conditions using non-fiction examples.	Investigate contaminants		The Jungle and readers response	The Portion is the Poison
	Oxidation with potassium Permanganate.	Today: American Industry and the Multinationals	Conditions Today
	Redox	Health and the Community.

Week 6 Students will prepare for the final project in science classes by continuing to investigate the chemicals that are a part of our daily lives due to industrialization. In social studies they will research different industries or community elements that have contributed to sanitation and pollution problems in the past. Students will learn about editorials and how to write one in language arts classes.	Jekyll & Hyde	Diseases are real	The Editorial
	Efficient Fertilizer		The Parts of an Editorial
	Stoichiometry Heat of Solution		The Editorial Revisited

	Is it Worth the Risk?		Editorial Writing
Week 7 The final project will be focused on wildcat dumping and how chemicals contaminate our communities and cause environmental health problems. This work will be coordinated through social studies and will utilize all the skills acquired and knowledge learned in the four disciplines this quarter.
			Wildcat Dumping Site
		Today: Our Communities, Our Health
		Wildcat Dumping

PULSE is a project of the Community Outreach and Education Program of the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center and is funded by:

an NIH/NCRR award #16260-01A1

The Community Outreach and Education Program is part of the Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center: an NIEHS Award

Supported by NIEHS grant # ES06694

Page Content: Rachel Hughes
Web Master: Travis Biazo