Exposure pathways, toxins, dose, pollutants, public health risk.
Your PLTW coursework: Biomedical Innovation ▸ Problem 4: Investigating Environmental Health ▸ "Activity 4.1.1 Environmental Exposures", "Activity 4.1.2 Analysis of Water Contamination"
What to do if absent- CER:
- Claim, Evidence, Reasoning: make a claim, back it with evidence, explain your reasoning.
- SOP:
- Standard Operating Procedure, the exact steps to follow (especially in a lab).
- Tracker:
- Your PLTW progress log where you record completed evidence.
- myPLTW:
- The PLTW course site where you do the online activities. Find it in Clever with your Microsoft sign-in, right next to Schoology.
Week overview - Environmental Exposure: pathways, dose, and public-health risk
Trace how a pollutant reaches the human body, connect dose to harm, and use real environmental data to estimate public-health risk.
- 1In your notebook, draw an exposure pathway from a pollutant source to a person, labeling each step (air, water, or food).
- 2Define , dose, and in your own words next to your diagram.
- 3Open an EPA or CDC dataset for a local pollutant and record the highest and lowest values you see.
- 4Write one sentence on how dose changes the level of risk for the people exposed.
- 5Identify one group that faces higher exposure and explain why in a sentence.
- 6List one realistic step that would lower exposure for that community.
- • You will be able to trace an exposure pathway from source to person.
- • You will be able to explain how dose relates to health risk.
- • You will be able to read environmental data to identify higher-risk groups.
Daily lessons this week
Open any day for its full lesson, the work due that day, and guided notes.
One-sentence evidence-based statement on who bears responsibility for unequal pollutant exposure and why.
Labeled exposure pathway diagram showing source, transport medium, route of entry, and target organ for one chosen pollutant.
Environmental dataset analysis showing pollutant concentrations, published threshold, dose estimate, threshold comparison, and flag if applicable.
Mitigation notes with two strategies (source-side and -side), dose-reduction predictions, feasibility tradeoffs, and a justified recommendation.
Complete environmental exposure map integrating pathway diagram, dose data with threshold comparison, mitigation recommendations, citations, and at-risk population label.
Quick intro to the week
- Hook: the air, water, and food around us carry both nutrients and hazards, and dose decides which one wins.
- Today's goal: connect a real pollutant to a real population using actual data.
- Monday bioethics debate fits here: is it just for some neighborhoods to bear more pollution than others?
- Reminder: your graded exposure analysis is submitted on the class site.
Your PLTW coursework this week
Do this: Advance your PLTW environmental health problem by completing your exposure-pathway analysis and risk write-up in the online course shell.
- • An exposure pathway describes how a pollutant travels from a source to a person.
- • Dose, the amount received, strongly shapes whether a substance causes harm.
- • Trace a pollutant from source to human exposure.
- • Use environmental data to identify higher-risk populations.
📋 PLTW evidence due: an exposure-pathway diagram and a data-based public-health risk analysis in the course shell.
All PLTW activities are completed inside the PLTW course environment: this page only gives direction.
This week's PLTW tracker
Your week at a glance. Check off each deliverable as you finish it, then submit so Mr. Mendoza can see how the class is pacing.
Use the code Mr. Mendoza gave you, not your name. Saved on this device.
| Day | Date | Focus | Key deliverable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | Wed, Apr 7 | Environmental justice debate | One-sentence evidence-based statement on who bears responsibility for unequal pollutant exposure and why. |
| Thursday | Thu, Apr 8 | Exposure pathway | Labeled exposure pathway diagram showing source, transport medium, route of entry, and target organ for one chosen pollutant. |
| Friday | Fri, Apr 9 | Environmental data lab | Environmental dataset analysis showing pollutant concentrations, published threshold, dose estimate, threshold comparison, and bioaccumulation flag if applicable. |
| Monday | Mon, Apr 12 | Mitigation notes | Mitigation notes with two strategies (source-side and receptor-side), dose-reduction predictions, feasibility tradeoffs, and a justified recommendation. |
| Friday | - | Exposure map submit | Complete environmental exposure map integrating pathway diagram, dose data with threshold comparison, mitigation recommendations, citations, and at-risk population label. |
- M: environmental justice debate
- T: exposure pathway
- W: risk data
- Th: mitigation notes
- F: exposure map submit
Due by week's end: Environmental exposure map.
5 panels from the illustrated semester.
Fiction. There is no such student. The lessons, labs and dates are the real planned course; the student, the classmates and the conversations are invented.
Lab day: what to bring & watch
This explainer accompanies the PLTW lab protocol: watch it before lab.
What to do when absent
Most days, this class is your PLTW coursework: and PLTW is online and individual. So being out usually just means doing exactly what we did in class, from home.
Open Clever, then myPLTWHow to get there: open Clever and sign in with your Microsoft (district) account. Both myPLTW and Schoology are in Clever. Do the activity in myPLTW. Turn the work in on this site or hand it to Mr. Mendoza, because that is the step that counts as submitted. Schoology only shows your report-card grade later.
You can't do those from home: do this instead: Public dataset analysis.
Class still runs. A substitute will post today's plan: complete the online activity above; it's built to be self-guided. Need the concept taught without a teacher? Use this authoritative explainer:
EPA: Learn About Environmental HealthVocabulary
Virtual resources
Teacher-posted resources
Classroom documents for this lesson are posted in Schoology. Open Clever, then Schoology, and find each one by the name shown on its card.
Open this when the class reaches this activity and use it to complete the required lesson artifact.
Placement rationale
Matched Environmental exposure and community health by path:Biomedical-Innovations/Problem-4_Environmental-Health/4.1_Environmental-Health; keywords:environmental, water quality. Score 142. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
Use this if you were absent, got stuck, or need another pass before you submit the lesson artifact.
Placement rationale
Matched Environmental exposure and community health by path:Biomedical-Innovations/Problem-4_Environmental-Health/4.1_Environmental-Health; keywords:environmental, exposure. Score 138. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
Open this when the class reaches this activity and use it to complete the required lesson artifact.
Placement rationale
Matched Environmental exposure and community health by path:Biomedical-Innovations/Problem-4_Environmental-Health/4.1_Environmental-Health; keywords:environmental. Score 134. Visibility: student-schoology (student-facing resource; link through Schoology rather than local path).
How to get there: open Clever and sign in with your Microsoft (district) account. Both myPLTW and Schoology are in Clever. Do the activity in myPLTW. Turn the work in on this site or hand it to Mr. Mendoza, because that is the step that counts as submitted. Schoology only shows your report-card grade later.