ENVP U6220 Environmental Chemistry & Toxicology Term Paper Instructions Objectives and Outline. This exercise will bring you to work in teams to 1) lead a research project based on an analysis of historical water quality data for several basins of the NY/NJ Harbor System and 2) link this work to societal or policy issues that led to past environmental regulations/management strategies. This project was selected to answer several objectives, namely: 1) To investigate and report, in a scientific format, about temporal trends in water quality descriptors for several basins of the NY/NJ Harbor System. 2) To use this approach to test three important scientific approaches: a) Determination of hypothesis(es) b) Quantitative analysis of extended data sets searching for relationships across several environmental indicators of coastal waters quality. 3) To link the work to regulation/policy at the national and/or international level on coastal management (here, it will be important to compare this short study and the situation of the region of study to issues of environmental degradation and regional management in other US coastal bodies of water). Each term project will consist of a paper (up to 5 written pages not counting visual and bibliographical support information; see description below). The written component of this project is intended to develop an experience in concise scientific writing following a format usually found in technical publications (peered-reviewed article or official agency report). The first goal of this project is to demonstrate a good understanding of the scientific issue(s) and its(their) link to regulation/policy. Conciseness, neatness, and rigor in the scientific interpretations, the presentation, and the conclusions reached, will be judged as the second but similarly important goal of this exercise. The use of reference material is required to support the discussion and statements/conclusions of this paper. A minimum of 10 independent references (peer-reviewed journal articles, book sections/chapters, agency reports) needs to be integrated in this paper (an average of 15-20 will probably be appropriate to discuss the issues fully). Their quality, integration into the conceptual discussion of your paper, current information, and relevance to the issue will play an important part in obtaining full grade for the paper. Please consult the reference material in reserve in the Library (effective science writing) to guide you if you’ve never written a scientific paper. It is also a good practice to start from the series of seminal papers that were provided to you and follow a style that seems appropriate to your needs and creativity. Term paper Format: Please see below for a detailed description of the report I am expecting you to provide. Reference: "Effective science writing": Environmental Chemistry – A Modular Approach. (2001) Ian Williams; John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Chap. 1, p. 1-27Title: Write in Larger Fonts with First Letter of Nouns in Upper Case Authors (use the full name and affiliation of each author. Present names in alphabetical order) Keywords: ten single keywords or up to five double keywords (e.g. mercury, arsenic, heavy metals, water contamination, etc…) Abstract Very concise recollection of the major points of your work. Short description of the major findings. Give broad averages and trends in your data (i.e. temporal or spatial variation; potential correlations). Provide in a sentence or two the major conclusions of your work (this is your take on the issue once you’ve condensed all the information). Finally, what are the major links to regulation/policy and/or what needs have you identified in science and communication of its results to support implementation of appropriate policy/regulation. You are limited to 300 words! This limitation will be enforced! Introduction Should be approximately 1/5 of the paper (remember that the whole text should not exceed 10 pages). In this section you should introduce 1) the major concept(s) of the field you are analyzing (namely coastal eutrophication) and some historical background of its evolution, 2) if there exists any controversy (argument) surrounding that topic today (i.e. is the impact of agriculture a consensus in the scientific/public regulatory community?), and 3) establish your view on this scientific issue almost in a hypothesis format: what is the general and current conclusion of this field? You will be discussing and supporting this position in the following sections with evidence collected from the large dataset available form the NY DEP. Here you will also identify the links (or lack of) between the science and policy/regulation. Here is the place where you develop a historical background of the conceptual evolution of the field you are studying. What are the major questions that have affected/directed the field? What is the scientific rationale that may have recently led to new body of knowledge (in essence, why are people still studying this issue)? What controversies have provided shifts in knowledge, or still maintain an open debate in the field? There may not be any strong controversy on the subject but only identified dearth of knowledge that support the need for additional information. This is probably the most important section where you’ll be establishing your position, the direction of the paper, and potentially pointing at needed interactions between social and natural sciences to address regulation/policy issues. Support all major statements with bibliographical references (See the main text below for indications of how to include references in the text and see Reference section for a way to list them). Results Here you need only present the results in a synthetic form (tables and graphs). You do not need to describe the methodology of analysis except for a general statement as to the information available on the DEP data set. However, if information appears on changes in method through time, please indicate that in this section. You do not need to discuss the implications of the data. Here you only present it in a concise and organized fashion.Discussion Develop the concepts presented in the Introduction and discuss your results with respect to your hypothesis. Build your