This event will focus on fresh water (e.g., residential, industrial or natural), the identified pages of The Clean Water Act (1972 & 1977), wastewater operator’s certification manual (Indiana March 2018 revision) and its applications, various testing of particular analytes using standardized curves (either interpreted or created), stabilization ponds, and introduction to the National Pretreatment Program.
Environmental Chemistry is a Science Olympiad event for both Divisions B and C in which students are tested on their knowledge of environmental chemistry, including chemical reactions, characterization, and quantification of freshwater. It was run as an official event in 2009 and 2010, and run as a trial event at the 2019 National Tournament. The event returned for the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
In the event, a team of two is given fifty minutes to complete any combination of hands-on activities, questions, experiments, data analysis, all of which relate to environmental chemistry. Participants are also expected to have read and studied several pages of the Clean Water Act and Wastewater Operator Certification Manual, both of which describe proper water-handling procedures. Scoring is largely based on the chemistry portion of the event (60% of total score), but answering questions about interpreting data (20% of total score), and answering questions about the Clean Water Act and Wastewater Operator Certification Manual also make up a large portion of the participants' score (20% of total score).
