Advanced Environmental Chemistry

First goal: To be able to interpret a landscape from an environmental chemist’s perspective including identifying human impact on natural cycles and relate observable characteristics in nature to basic chemistry underpinnings. We will develop a working knowledge of environmental chemistry field and laboratory techniques based on Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard practice and extrapolate the knowledge of local environmental chemistry to more global issues.

Second goal: To contribute to a growing body of work that serves as a baseline for climate change data on the San Bernadino Mountains. Future researchers will have access to our data when choosing a sampling site or comparing their present to our current one. Data is shared in the form of a technical report to the US Forest Service and a collaborative community coalition, Friends of Jenks Lake.

We will work in interdisciplinary teams of two or three scholars, collaborating and discussing how to put this work into the larger context of climate change and human impact. The final project will be an integration of all of our ideas and experiences shared with the larger community. Our means of sharing our work and ideas will be a watershed profile assessment (WPA)-a written document that looks at all the data collected and integrates it into a technical report. This work is archived in a database in ArcGIS and shared with the US Forest Service.

Course Objectives: By the end of this course, you will be able to:

• Create a simple model of an environmental system based on sources and sinks of nutrients and contaminants that contribute to that system, including a GIS-based map of trends and environmental factors.
• Devise assessment criteria and methods to determine nutrient or contaminant levels in an environmental system and actualize this assessment on a real-life system.
• Gain familiarity with several common sampling and analysis techniques for aqueous, terrestrial, and atmospheric systems, and then use these techniques to sample a system in the final portfolio.
• Make meaningful connections between the chemistry of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and terrestrial environment.
  

Dates

May 5 – 29, 2026
Meeting 4 days a week, 7 hours a day.

Enrollment limit

12 students

Gen Chem 131/132; Organic Chemistry (CHEM 231/232)

Contact the faculty to apply

Contact Professor Lyons at rebecca_lyons@redlands.edu or call (909) 748-8542. Once you are confirmed as an enrolled student, you will receive a syllabus with more information.