Course Title: Environmental and Chemical Analysis

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Environmental and Chemical Analysis

Credit Points: 12.00

Important Information:

Please note that this course may have compulsory in-person attendance requirements for some teaching activities. 

To participate in any RMIT course in-person activities or assessment, you will need to comply with RMIT vaccination requirements which are applicable during the duration of the course. This RMIT requirement includes being vaccinated against COVID-19 or holding a valid medical exemption. 

Please read this RMIT Enrolment Procedure as it has important information regarding COVID vaccination and your study at RMIT: https://policies.rmit.edu.au/document/view.php?id=209

Please read the Student website for additional requirements of in-person attendance: https://www.rmit.edu.au/covid/coming-to-campus. 

Please check your Canvas course shell closer to when the course starts to see if this course requires mandatory in-person attendance. The delivery method of the course might have to change quickly in response to changes in the local state/national directive regarding in-person course attendance. 



Course Coordinator: N/A

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925

Course Coordinator Email: @rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Availability: Email for an appointment


Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

Assumed Knowledge

To complete this course successfully, you should have completed First Year Chemistry. 


Course Description

Pollution in the aquatic and soil environments negatively affects our quality of life and health, with anthropogenic activity releasing both inorganic and organic contaminants into waterways and soil environments. 

In this course, you will learn about sample separation techniques and advanced analytical instrumentation to explore the fate, behaviour, and impact of trace organic and physical chemicals and trace metals. You will use real-world examples to explore how we separate contaminants from environmental matrices and learn how we can measure analytes at very low levels of contaminants using advanced chemical instrumentation. 


Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

Program Learning Outcomes 

The course is a program option course, however, will contribute to following program learning outcomes for: 

BP350 Bachelor of Science
BP192 Environmental Science 


The course will develop your scientific, critical thinking, problem solving and communication skills, and their application to the study and understanding of fundamental chemistry processes.  

On completion of this course you should be able to:  

CLO 1: Apply analytical chemistry and instrumental methods of analysis to problems related to aquatic and soil environments;
CLO 2: Collect, record, validate and interpret sample analytical data;
CLO 3: Draw conclusions from sample analytical data using appropriate statistical analyses in conventional chemical and mathematical notation CLO4: Justify results, information or arguments effectively in written analytical reports;
CLO 5: Work effectively, responsibly, ethically and safely in an individual or team laboratory or field context. 


Overview of Learning Activities

You will be actively engaged in a range of learning activities such as lectorials/tutorials, including both individual and group activities, and labortaory practical classes. Delivery of lectorials and tutorials may be face to face, online or a mix of both. Practical classes wil be face-to-face. 

The learning activities included in this course are lectorials where syllabus material presented online will be discussed and explained, and the subject will be illustrated with demonstrations and examples. Completion of tutorial questions are designed to give further practice in the application of theory into practice, and to give feedback on student progress and understanding. Completion of written assignments consisting of numerical and other problems will promote deeper understanding of the subject matter. 

You are encouraged to be proactive and self-directed in your learning, asking questions of your lecturer and/or peers and seeking out information as required, especially from the numerous sources available through the RMIT library, and through links and material specific to this course that is available through myRMIT Studies Course Site. 


Overview of Learning Resources

RMIT will provide you with resources and tools for learning in this course through myRMIT Studies Course Site, wher lecture notes, online resouces, practice questons, and recorded content wil be available for you to access. 

There are services available to support your learning through the University Library. The Library provides guides on academic referencing and subject specialist help as well as a range of study support services. For further information, please visit the Library page on the RMIT University website and the myRMIT student portal. 


Overview of Assessment

Assessment Tasks 

Assessment Item 1: Online Quizzes
Weighting 20%
This assessment task supports CLOs 1. 

Assessment Item 2: Laboratory Reports 
Weighting 30%
This assessment task supports CLOs 2-5. 

Assessment Item 3: Assignment
Weighting 50%
This assessment task supports CLOs 1-3. 

If you have a long term medical condition and/or disability it may be possible to negotiate to vary aspects of the learning or assessment methods. You can contact the program coordinator or Equitable Learning Services if you would like to find out more.