ES200 – ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

Instructors:

  1. Munish Kumar Chandel (Solid Waste)
  2. Virendra Sethi (Air Waste)
  3. Amritanshu Shriwastav (Water Waste)

Session: 2019-2020

Prerequisites: N/A

Course content and structure:

The course comprised of 3 modules:

  • Module A: Air Pollution
    Description: An introduction to understanding air quality management, fundamental processes of meteorology, Gaussian plume model. Air Pollutants – Gaseous and particulate, Criteria pollutants, ambient and source standards, Aerosols: Characterisation of aerosols, size distributions, measurement methods; Transport behaviour: diffusion, sedimentation, inertia; Visibility; principles of particulate control systems.
    Goal: To help students understand the key steps in managing air quality

  • Module B: Water Treatment
    Description: Discussion of water quality constituents and introduction to the design and operation of water and wastewater treatment processes.
    Goal: To help students develop basic understanding of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena involved in design and operation of water and wastewater treatment facilities.

  • Module C: Solid Waste Management and Climate Change
    Description: First part of the module would cover different aspects of solid and hazardous waste management. Second part would focus on the climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, and how different technologies would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions.
    Goal: To help students develop basic understanding of solid and hazardous waste management, and the climate change and its possible causes.

Feedback on lectures:

All three profs followed ppt style delivery of lectures where slides were presented and explained in the class. Usual insti policy of attendance was enforced. Explanation given in class and lecture slides were sufficient from exam point of view.

Feedback on tutorials and exams:

All three modules had assignments which contributed towards 1/3rd of the weight age. The assignments involved were of descriptive type and involved reading articles and case studies. The end sem exam consisted of 2/3rd weightage having three sections for three modules. Water module had all MCQs but had a very harsh 100% negative marking. Other two modules had a mix of short and long answer questions. Almost all questions were picked straight from the lecture slides.

Difficulty (on a scale of 1 being very easy to 5 being very hard): 2

Textbooks & References:

Profs give a list of books for reference at start of the course, but the best strategy is to focus solely on lecture slides and use google to get more details about the slide contents.

Grading Statistics:

AA- 69 AB- 122 BB- 87 BC- 60 CC- 29 CD- 4 DD- 4 FR- 6 II- 2

Additional Comments & what you learnt from the course:

Grading for assignments is usually very liberal so final exam becomes the grade decider. Be very through with the lecture slides and revise properly.

Reviewed by – Anurag Kumar (aforanurag99@gmail.com)