Professional Education Series presented by AEHS Foundation

PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION SERIES
Spring 2012 Schedule

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Special class rates available for municipal, state and federal employees, as well as members of the military.

Contact anina@aehsfoundation.org to inquire about special rates and for detailed course descriptions.

SPECIAL TOPIC: Stress Biology and Hormesis

Online class taught by Dr. Edward J. Calabrese

Assisted by Cynthia Langlois

February 6, 2012 - April 27, 2012

Hormesis is a bi-phasic dose response model characterized by low-dose stimulation and high-dose inhibition. In other words, while high doses of a chemical cause cell damage or death, low doses often lead to the induction of adaptive responses to low-level stressor agents. Hormesis and/or biological stress responses have been found to be highly generalizable – being independent of biological model, endpoint measured, chemical type and inter-individual variation. It, therefore, has implications for a wide variety of fields including, but not limited to human health risk assessment, ecological risk assessment, pharmaceutical and medical device development, toxicology, nutrition/food science, aging and exercise. Hormesis has the capacity to affect us in our professional lives as well as personal lifestyle choices.

In this class, students will learn the history of the dose response, including hormesis and other dose response types. They will also gain an appreciation and understanding of: the evidence of the occurrence of hormetic responses in the pharmacological and toxicological literature; and its mechanistic foundations; and its implications for regulation and new drug development. A general understanding of scientific concepts is required. Scientists and regulators in fields affected by dose response relationships will benefit from this class.

Armed Conflict and the Environment: Perspectives for Global Sustainability

Online class taught by Dr. David Ludwig

February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

From prehistory to the present, wars have been important determinants of environmental quality. Landscape-scale manipulations of fire, water, soil, vegetation, and animals were weapons in ancient times. As technological developments expanded, impacts of war increased, and the consequences are long-term and far-reaching. At the same time, military facilities provide tightly controlled access, and many sensitive habitats and species prosper on military lands while declining elsewhere.

This course provides a comprehensive and innovative analysis of the complex relationships of war and war readiness with the environment. The instructor, Dr. David Ludwig, is a systems ecologist who has worked on military environmental issues across North America and around the world. From Pacific islands to the Middle East and across the Mediterranean and Atlantic, he has documented residual impacts of World War Two and its aftermath, the Cold War, and modern conflicts including the Gulf Crisis of the early 1990s. His consulting portfolio includes advising global commands and regional and local facilities on sustainable design and operations for restoration and enhancement of critical habitats and biodiversity, including endangered and threatened species. His academic background as a broad-based ecosystems expert and his intimate familiarity with the published literature and internet information sources make him an outstanding guide along the difficult and multifaceted path to coherent understanding of the implications of armed conflict and military readiness for the sustainable future of the biosphere.

Ecological Risk Assessment for a Sustainable Environment

Online class taught by Dr. David Ludwig
February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

This course offers a broad introduction to the state-of-the-science and the practice of ecological risk assessment in multi-stressor contexts. Students are exposed to an array of the interrelated disciplines that are the foundation of ecological risk assessment. These include among others: stressor identification, systems ecology, population biology, chemical fate and transport, basic toxicology, restoration science, resource allocation, regulatory policy and guidelines, comparative risk analysis, and net outcomes evaluation. Case studies are presented to frame discussion and debate. In true whole-system fashion the class takes a global perspective, and we cover issues and examples from around the world and from varied ecosystems, from open oceans and alpine highlands to deserts, estuaries, wetlands, and densely settled urban environments.

Environmental Forensics: Environmental Crime Scene Investigations

Online class taught by Dr Ioana G. Petrisor
February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

This course provides useful information related to contaminant source tracking and age-dating. Environmental forensic and its role within environmental and legal fields will be first defined. Then, various components of environmental forensic investigations will be presented, including: historical document and aerial photograph review, as well as investigative “fingerprinting” techniques (e.g., chemical, isotopic, mineralogical, tree-ring and DNA fingerprinting). Some of these techniques can point out multiple releases and may be used to track old releases even after site mitigation. Additionally, contaminant properties and fate & transport will be reviewed for main environmental contaminant classes (e.g., petroleum products, chlorinated solvents, PCBs, perchlorate, oxygenate additives, metals). Representative case studies will be provided in order to illustrate practical applications, including:

successfully settling of environmental disputes;

building appropriate monitoring strategies and minimization of future liabilities;

effective characterization of complex sites (where many contaminants and potential sources of contamination exist) enabling efficient and cost-effective remedial design.

The course is intended for a large range of professionals who deal with environmental contamination issues, especially involving legal liability and complex site contamination characterization and cleanup. Such professionals may include (but are not limited to): environmental consultants, industrial site owners and operators (e.g., manufacturers, mining companies, foundry operators, refineries, dry cleaners), insurance agency’s employees, environmental lawyers and judges, governmental employees (from regulatory agencies), and environmental students. This course will serve as the cornerstone for the Certificate in Environmental Forensics, which will soon be offered by the AEHS Foundation.

Fundamentals of Toxicology: Human and Environmental

Online class taught by Dr. Jason White
February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

Toxicology is the study of the harmful effects of chemicals and other physical phenomena such as radiation on biological systems, including an emphasis on the mechanisms of those processes. Also included in this discipline is how toxicologic information can be used in the development of safer chemicals such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals and how the science of toxicology can be communicated to industry, regulators and the public. This on-line course will provide an introduction to the key concepts of toxicology, including:

A focus on specific toxicants including radiation; pesticides; heavy metals; particulates; solvents; plastics; food additives; plant and animal toxins; carcinogens, mutagens and teratogens.
Environmental and industrial toxicology;
Toxicologic evaluation and data extrapolation;
Mode of toxicant entry, absorption and distribution of toxicants;
Metabolism and excretion of toxic substances;
Interactions between substances in toxicology.

MANAGING RISKS: What to Measure and how to Assess the "Best Choice"

Online class taught by, Dr. Paolo Ricci
February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

This course introduces practical and theoretical quantitative applications of risk analysis and management – viewed as a decision-making support process. The primary focus of this course is to acquaint students with a set of decision-making principles and decision analysis tools, and demonstrate how these principles and tools apply to environmental management. In addition to the disciplines covered in both courses, this class will go into toxicological models, cancer and models including epidemiology.

Course objectives include:

Develop decision-making frameworks for assessing the “best” outcome and thus guide a final decision.
Understand the role that informed judgment plays in justifying choices.
Describe the logic of a risk-driven problem.
Know how to resolve uncertainty, risk and ambiguity.
Be knowledgeable of paradoxes and other issues that affect the implementation of any rational choice.
Be able to develop a causal model describing the chain of events from emissions to final adverse health effect, model these and propagate the uncertainty throughout via Monte Carlo Simulations.
Develop a simple risk-cost-benefit analysis of an environmental problem of a student’s choice and understand the limitations of that analysis.
Understand the differences between toxicological and cancer models, be able to interpret the results from those models and understand the limitations of the analysis at very low dose rates.
Be able to develop a simple fault tree and a simple event tree applied to an accident, formulate the proper probabilistic aspects of those trees and apply the results to a case study.

Soil Chemistry- How Organic and Inorganic Chemicals React in Soils

Online class taught by Dr. Jim Dragun
February 6, 2012- April 27, 2012

Soil Chemistry is the study of soil as a complex mixture of reacting and interacting organic and inorganic chemicals. This course will focus on the study of the basic physical, chemical, mineralogical, and biological properties of a wide variety of soil systems. It will also focus on the study of the fundamental, governing principles of the behavior of a wide range of chemicals (e.g. acids, bases, metals, radionuclides, bulk hydrocarbons, dissolved hydrocarbons, DNAPLs, NAPLs) over a wide range of soil systems.

This course is intended to present practical information to a large range of professionals who deal with the presence and significance of chemicals in soil and groundwater systems, with site assessments, with site remediation, and with storage and disposal facilities. These professionals include biologists, chemists, civil engineers, environmental managers, environmental scientists, environmental engineers, geologists, regulatory agency personnel, researchers, and students.