Assignment Schedule and Policies

Submisison Policy and Late Policy: 
Material will typically be handed in at the beginning of class. There will be a 5%/day penalty for material handed in late (not including weekends, clock starts "ticking" at the end of class). I will not accept assignments once the papers are handed back to the rest of the class.  Unless otherwise stated, material should be presented on letter size paper and stapled together. Please do NOT use any sort of folder, binder or protective cover (they are cumbersome).

Illness/Medical Absence
Please see the following policy: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/accommodation_medical.pdf

And now some messages from our lawyers... plagiarism and Turnitin.com

“Scholastic offences are taken seriously and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site:
http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/appeals/scholoff.pdf.
For a full set of regulations please visit this website: http://www.uwo.ca/univsec/handbook/exam/crsout.pdf"

Turnitin.com
Unfortunately turnitin has "caught" several offenders in my classes, please do not be the next one - it is awkward for everyone involved.  If you write and cite properly this tool ensures your paper is not marked relative to that of somebody who is plagiarising.  The univerisity has provided this mandatory wording: "All required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to the commercial plagiarism detection software under license to the University for the detection of plagiarism. All papers submitted will be included as source documents in the reference database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of papers subsequently submitted to the system. Use of the service is subject to the licensing agreement, currently between The University of Western Ontario and Turnitin.com"

Go to the Timetable section of the syllabus for turnitin login information.

Marking Conventions: If you are curious to know what all the symbols on your marked papers mean, please go here to find out. The marking notation link on the main menu to the left on all pages takes you to the same place.

Assignment 1: NPRI and Pollution over Time and Space

Due

Objectives

The purpose of this assignment is to "explore" a chemical substance known to have serious health effects.  You will become (more) familiar with the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) as an example of freely available government data. NPRI is a database of point source pollution in Canada. Since the mid 1990s the Canadian government has been collecting this data from companies, who are required by law to submit data on pollutant releases from their facilities. The data has both temporal and spatial dimensions that make it ideal for geographic study. You will extract data for whatever substance you choose to create a brief report on the distribution of the substance over space.

Tasks

1. Pick a substance

Choose a substance that interests you, but please select one that has potentially serious health effects. Visit the NPRI site, specifically the substance information link that provides links to such lists as the Environmental Defense Scorecard site for pollution information site which includes a page specifically on health effects choose your "favourite" health impact (cancer, developmental, or reproductive), choose "recognized" and go to the substance list.

Some you might consider
- benzene
- styrene
- dioxin (e.g., Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin)
- furans (e.g., Tetrachlorodibenzofuran)
- mercury
- asbestos
- cadmium
- toluene


2. Get the data

   You can get the data from the NPRI website in various forms (e.g., Microsoft Access database file), but perhaps the best way to do this is to copy and paste data from their "Web Query" form.  The upside of this approach is that you only get the data you need and do not have to sort through multiple tabs that the Access database files contain once you convert them to Excel.  The down side of the web query  approach is that you can only get one year's data at a time, so you will have to do multiple queries.
   
   You need to copy and paste a year's worth of data at a time into an Excel spreadsheet - but do this multiple times, one for each year.  In the Web Query form, select a substance, and year, and switch from all types to total releases.  Copy the resultant table of data from the web page and "paste special" as text (not the default, "as html") into Excel and the data should be formatted into columns.  Add a year column and insert the year for the entries.  Repeat this process for each year.  Now you can sort by facility name, province, city, total releases, and year.  The distinction between air, land and water is not necessary - most releases are by air (if this is not the case for your substance, it might be worth noting in your write-up.  You should have at least 5 years of data to allow both a temporal and spatial analysis.

3. Summarize Temporal and Spatial Patters (e.g, graph)
   
   Manipulate the data to determine spatial (e.g., province) and temporal (i.e., year) patterns - e.g., % of total releases by province and year  Graph it perhaps to see patterns more clearly.  If you have taken the Geography of Hazards with me, this may start to sound very familar...and a visit to Assignmnent 1 for that course and particualrly the example spreadsheet might give you some ideas on how to go about all of this.

Questions

1. What are the most serious health impacts of this substance and how do people typically get exposed to this substance? (3 marks)
2. What are the major sources of this substance (e.g., industries). (3 marks)
(The Scorecard site will help with the questions above, but I encourage you to find an academic journal reference to augment your answer to these questions)

3. Describe the spatial and temporal distribution of this substance.  For example, is the substance concentrated in the prairie provinces or the maritime provinces?  Is the substance used mainly in large urban areas?  Have releases increased or decreased over time.(10 marks) 
4. (5)What are some potential policy implications of what you have found? (4 marks)

Submit

1. Summary graphs and/or tables from Excel spreadsheed (no page max. but be reasonable).  We do not need to see the raw data
2. Answers to the above questions.  Directly reference figures/tables by number. 1000 word max.
3. Your completed paper to Turnitin It is best to embed your graphs/tables into the text so Turnitin will accept the file.

For Turnitin login information. Go to the Timetable section of the syllabus.

Marking

30 marks 5 style + 25 content

style (5/30 marks)

1. title page (-1)
2. reference list (-1)
3. spelling/grammar (-2 max) - up to two marks can be lost, the first few are free, from then on marks are deducted at the TA's discretion
4. formal style (-2 max) - other formal style issues (e.g., slang, acronyms, contractions) TA's discretion

content (25/30 marks)

• questions 1-4 (20 marks - breakdown above).
• graphs and/or summary tables (5 marks)

Assignment 2:  Evidence Linking Exposure and Outcome

Due

Objectives

The purpose of this assignment is to investigate an environment and health issue in detail.  You will write a critical essay which assesses the state of evidence on the link between an environmental "exposure" and a health outcome.

Tasks

1. Pick a topic
   You may pick any topic that is relevant to the course.  Here are some examples you might consider:
   - health effects of wind turbines
   - health, social capital and the built environment
   - obesity and suburbanization
   - breast cancer and organochlorines
   - health effects of noise
   - health effects of waste incinerators
   - radon, lung cancer and risk communication
   - air pollution and health
   - health effects of the Sydney Tar Ponds
   - health effects of the Chernobyl disaster
   - health effects of pesticide X
   - psycyhosocial impacts of noxious facilities



2. Gather academic literature on the topic
   Focus on finding peer reviewed empirical research - i.e., journal articles and books. Websites typically are not peer reviewed.  How much literature is enough?  Once you have all the key pieces of writing on the topic you have enough ; )
   
   
3. Assess The Strength of Evidence
   The focus of your search is "evidence", scientific evidence linking the exposure and outcome. Use the skills you have learned in lecture and tutorial to assess how strong various pieces of evidence are.  Just because something is published does not mean it is strong evidence.  Critically appraise the evidence in each article you read.
   
   
4. Draw conclusions
   If you were in a position to directly effect decisions on controlling the exposure in question, what would you do? What research remains to be done?

Hints

1. Make use of the many journal databases at the library.
2. Google Scholar, is getting better every day.
3. Focus on the most recent papers and work backwards
4. Use the Web of Science Citation Indexes to determine how often particular papers have been cited by others in academia (this gives a sense of how important are the findings).
5. Try evaluating each paper using this critical appraisal form to help you organize your thoughts.

Submit

1. A formal essay, 10 pages max, double spaced, 12 point font, reasonable margins, printed on letter sized paper and stapled with an appropriate title page (no covers or binders please).
2. Final paper to Turnitin . 

For Turnitin login information. Go to the Timetable section of the syllabus.

Marking

20 marks 3 style + 17 content

style (3/15 marks)

1. title page (-1)
2. reference list (-1)
3. spelling/grammar (-2 max) - up to two marks can be lost, the first few are free, from then on marks are lost at the TA's discretion
4. formal style (-2 max) - other formal style issues (e.g., slang, acronyms, contractions) TA's discretion

content (17/20 marks)