Environmental Chemistry – (M.Sc.)

After finishing the studies of Environmental Chemistry, graduates should be able to:

* use the knowledge of basic chemical disciplines like organic, inorganic and analytical chemistry for understanding the occurrence, fate and effects of chemicals in the environment,
* understand environmental aspects of human activities and evaluate technologies from the viewpoint of environmental impacts,
* identify, analyze and suggest solutions for wide spectrum of environmental problems,
* safely handle chemicals, work independently in the chemical laboratory and operate wide spectrum of instrumentation,
* apply methods of environmental sampling and analysis for specific environmental problems,
* desing and carry out chemical experiments to explore environmental processes, fate of chemicals and their effects,
* analyze measured data, interpret and discuss the results from monitoring studies, from studies of environmental processes and from laboratory experiments,
* combine own results with the information from literature or chemical databases, evaluate own and gathered information and produce scientific papers and reports,
* predict and model distribution of chemicals in the environment, their effects and risks,
* generally present the results of own work, discuss them and communicate on environmental issues in English as well.

The goal of the studies of Master degree of Environmental Chemistry is to prepare graduates with deep theoretical and practical knowledge in the area of environmental chemistry. This includes mainly knowledge about chemical pollution of environment, sources, fate and transformations of pollutants, effects and risks of chemical pollution. The basis of this education are, of course, chemical disciplines like organic, inorganic, analytical and physical chemistry, but they are applied to know, understand and predict the behavior and effects of chemicals in the environment. This basic knowledge is combined with deep knowledge about environment itself (biotic and abiotic parts). During studies, attention is paid to the practical training (sampling, sample processing, analytical methods, data processing and modelling). In the education, an emphasis is given to the permanent relation of the educated topics to real environmental problems (e.g. technologies and environment, risk analysis, environmental impact assessment etc.). Important lectures focused on the interaction of chemicals and living organisms (toxicology and/or ecotoxicology) are available to be involved in the curriculum of Environmental Chemistry. Students prepare diploma thesis focused on the above mentioned issues and perform their own experimental research which is usually a part of real environmentally focused projects.