Journalists have reported large-scale lead poisoning affecting children in cities such as Flint, Michigan. Unfortunately, children's exposure to lead is not isolated and occurs throughout the country in both urban and rural settings. The effects of lead exposure can cause children to develop disabilities, potentially requiring special education…

Investigations into the etiology of autism spectrum disorders have been largely confined to two realms: variations in DNA sequence and somatic developmental exposures. Here we suggest a third route--disruption of the germline epigenome induced by exogenous toxicants during a parent's gamete development. Similar to cases of germline mutation, these…

The dangers of organic dye pollutants and environmental pollution improvement through photocatalytic degradation are important courses in applied chemistry programs in universities. Zinc oxide (ZnO)-based nanomaterials are potent catalytic agents against organic dyes, but few experiments are available for students to understand their role and…

Academic institutions are faced with the complex problem of accurately determining the hazards associated with a proposed or ongoing project. For many reasons, compressed gas safety can be a significant challenge at universities, especially those that involve research using many uncommon materials. This article is a call to action for implementing…

TNT is both toxic and explosive, and therefore, the detection of TNT represents an environmental concern and a security concern. Dogs are often used for detection, but other methods are needed. This laboratory investigates a ruthenium bipyridine ([Ru(bpy)[subscript 3]][superscript 2+]) luminescence-based trinitrotoluene (TNT) sensor. Students will…

Integrating chemical management into a comprehensive emergency operations plan (EOP), including through the creation of a Toxic Materials Annex and a Hazardous Materials Annex, helps improve a school district's or individual school's preparedness for a chemical-related incident. To ensure the annexes remain relevant and useful, districts and…

Children from economically disadvantaged communities have a disproportionate risk of exposure to chemicals, social stress, and learning difficulties. Although animal models and epidemiologic studies link exposures and neurodevelopment, little focus has been paid to academic outcomes in environmental health studies. Similarly, in the educational…

Although evidence of heritability for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is strong, studies of twin pairs suggest that at least some portion of the etiology is attributable to environmental factors, either directly or through interaction with genes. Given the multitude of environmental and psychosocial exposures that have been reported to increase…

Society at large often incorrectly thinks that the word 'chemicals' implies danger, when of course all matter can be described as a chemical. In this article we define what precisely we mean by 'hazard', risk' and 'danger'; we then consider selected elements from the periodic table that are noteworthy because of their dangerous characteristics.

This paper describes the course outline for a three credit hour nonlaboratory course in Environmental Health Chemistry which was taught from 1981 until 2008 at the State University of New York College at Oneonta. The purpose of this paper is to share the lecture outline in the hopes that it might be useful to others who are preparing to teach…

Developing strong safety cultures in academic institutions requires that students at all levels be educated by faculty in chemical safety. Yet chemical safety education is missing from the chemistry curriculum. This article considers a report of numerous injuries from incidents from using flammable chemicals in demonstrations as evidence that…

The Griess assay is widely used by regulation agencies as an official method for nitrite quantification in water and food samples. In Brazil, the official method, which has been used to determine nitrite in food, was described by Instituto Adolfo Lutz (283/IV) in 1984. It uses 8 mL of reactants and provides 50 mL (reactants plus sample) of waste…

A laboratory experiment was developed to introduce systems thinking and green chemistry concepts through the synthesis of the antidepressant and smoking cessation aid, bupropion hydrochloride. The traditional synthesis has several issues from a green chemistry perspective: it uses the toxic solvents N-methylpyrrolidinone (NMP) and dichloromethane…

Teaching through experiments has always been an indispensable teaching method in chemistry and other STEM disciplines. Letting more students have access to experiments at the frontier of scientific research is essential to stimulating students' interest in chemistry. With the advancement of computer technology, virtual simulation experiments…

We describe a series of three experiments in which students develop a model system for measuring the LC50 of household substances, using grass seed as the model organism. Students use statistical methods to compare two samples (using chi-square and Student's "t"-tests), conduct a two-level multifactor experiment to look at multiple…