CLASS PARTICIPATION EXERCISE
Part of the assessment of students’ competence shall be based on this exercise, which involves studying certain aspects of Hazardous Substances Management, as ‘homework’.
Each member of the class shall perform this ‘homework’ and on the following week the class shall break into syndicates of three or four people, and each syndicate shall discuss one item of the ‘homework’ in detail.
Each syndicate shall develop a presentation, which will be performed by a member, taking ten to fifteen minutes.
Each class member will be required to perform a presentation, on a topic related to Hazardous Substances Management, from the ‘homework’. This presentation will be assessed, by the course facilitator.
Homework
Week 1
A list of hazardous substances is attached (Appendix 1). Research each one and determine its toxicology, i.e. health effects, routes of entry, its LD50 (if applicable). The course web site may be used to gain information, or any text etc.
Week 2
This weeks homework is about epidemiology. Class members should either go to the Biomedical Libraries at Monash or Melbourne University, find the Codex Medicus, and research one paper involving an epidemiological study, preferably related to a Hazardous Substance.
Alternatively the student may go to his/her local doctor’s surgery and ask to see ‘The Lancet’ journal, to find the study.
The student should seek to discover the meaning of the terms ‘standardised mortality ratio’, ‘case – control study’,’association’, as well as establishing the relevance of epidemiology to Hazardous Substances Management.
Week 3
This weeks homework is about classification of Hazardous Substances into Dangerous Goods Classes.
The student shall research the Dangerous Goods Classification system, and find reasons hazardous substances are classified into the various Dangerous Goods Classes.
The Australian Code for the Transport of Dangerous Goods (or the ‘UN orange book’), should be consulted for definitions of ‘classes’.
APPENDIX 1
EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS LIST
carbon disulphide
methanol
benzo a pyrene
hydrogen fluoride
methylene ortho bischloro aniline
benzene
trichloroethylene
parathion
acrylonitrile
nitroglycerine
nickel carbonyl
cadmium carbonate
hydrogem cyanide
strontium 90
toluine diisocyanate
arsenic oxide
methyl mercury
sodium fluoro acetate
sodium fluoride
dioxin
