Module 9

Information from Course Outline
Module 9, Closes Monday, October 29th [Paper outline and lit review due today]

Introduction
The immune system is the last organ system for which we will overview the toxicology. We then start a review of the major classes of toxic substances, starting with metals. We also look at a topic often in the news these days, endocrine disrupters. As a practical matter, humans are exposed to mixtures of environmental chemicals. Here we will discuss some general concepts of mixtures.

Reading from Stine and Brown
Chapters 13. For this module, the student should read submodules 9A before reading the respective chapter of Stein and Brown.

Homework.
There are 25 points for this module's homework. a.) 5 points for quiz, b.)10 points for individual written assignment, c.) 10 points for the discussion, and d.) extra credit points for the message to the instructor.

a.) Access the quiz through Blackboard. A copy of the quiz is found here.

b.) Read the Issue Paper linked in 9B. Write a 4 or 5 paragraph report, based on that paper. Take the hypothesis, "Environmental endocrine disrupters are likely to have an effect on human health, especially gender differences" and find or do not find support in that paper. Mention the known effects on the environment, reports of laboratory studies, and reports of known human health effects. Write the paper as if it were to be read by another student in this course, but one who skipped this submodule. There is a glossary at the back of the issue paper that may help you. No problem with using other resources, but you should be able to get a coherent report just from the issue paper.

c.) Discussion. Use the team approach to fill out the table in 9D. Your output will not really be a table, but the table provides an outline for reports. Each team member take one or two metals and write a brief report following the outline. In general, most of the information is in the text, but some is not. One of the group take the initiative and assign the metals. Some of the team members are behind in their work or out of town, so, if in doubt, email them to be sure they will participate. Each group member post a draft of the reports, I suggest by Sunday night. Then each group member read and comment on several of the other members drafts. Then each group member post a final report by Wednesday night. I will grade as follows: 3 points for the draft reports, 2 points for commenting on each others, 4 points for the final. Then I will compare the three Group's work. Best group gets two points, middle group gets one point.

d.) You may append a message to the instructor to the end of your written assignment described in b.). Possible extra credit points for pointing out typo's or glitches in the material, suggesting a topic for Module 14, or any good questions, comment or criticisms.

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