Environmental Engineering

Students are expected to know intermediate year chemistry for this course. All students must pass a chemistry quiz. The first chemistry quiz will be on Friday, 21 February. Students who do not pass will be required to attend extra Thursday tutorials and retake Friday chemistry quizzes until they pass. No course marks are received for passing, but a pass is required.

A penalty of 20% per day of the actual marks will be applied for late reports.

The final exam will cover content in the whole course with an emphasis on content after the test.

Generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT) is a new technology with clear implications for civil and natural resource engineering practice. In this course, the use of generative AI is permitted for report writing providing it adheres to this policy.
Generative AI can be used to improve your writing and provide editing feedback. When using AI to alter your writing, it is important to check that the substantive message of the text has not been altered. It is recommended that your prompt end with “…and explain the changes that you made” so that you can gain feedback to improve your own writing. It is not recommended to use AI to generate original text. Rather, it is safer to place yourself in the role of author, and AI in the role of editor, so that it is only improving the communication of your original ideas.

AI can be used to find, gather and summarize knowledge on a subject that is outside your expertise. However, it is important that you verify any information produced by AI. AI output can be convincingly wrong on technical matters. AI output can be incomplete, potentially omitting alternative hypotheses or views. AI output can be contradictory, offering concluding statements that are incoherent with arguments given earlier. Thus, it is important to verify AI-generated output.

This includes checking source material, asking or reprompting an AI for alternative views, and challenging it to justify its statements. Verification may only possible when you are a subject matter expert, i.e., a competent engineer.
An AI is not a substitute for a creative, problem-solving engineer. It cannot match the complex reasoning or emotional intelligence of a human. Relying on an AI to solve problems for you may prevent you from achieving course Learning Outcomes. Being unable to demonstrate your mastery of Learning Outcomes during an invigilated assessment (test or exam) when AI is unavailable could lead to you failing the course.

If you decide to use AI to complete a course assessment, then it is important that you are transparent about this use. If you use AI to edit the text of your submission, then you must disclose this in your submission. Use of AI that falls within the policy described here will not result in a penalty.

Students suspected of using AI outside the specifications of this document will be reported to the department Academic Integrity Officer. As part of their investigation, students may be invited to attend an interview, during which they may be asked to describe how the assessment was completed or to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject. If it is determined that a student is likely to have misused AI, then disciplinary action may be taken, including partial or full denial of credit for an assignment or course, X-mark on transcript denoting breach of academic integrity, suspension, fines and expulsion.

Further reading:

Academic Integrity at the University of Canterbury. https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/about-uc/what-we-do/teaching/academic-integrity Engineering NZ guidelines on ethical use of Generative AI. https://www.engineeringnz.org/programmes/engineering-and-ai/appropriate-safe-and-ethical-use/

Special Considerations

Any student who has been impaired by significant exceptional and/or unforeseeable circumstances that have prevented them from completing any major assessment items, or that have impaired their performance such that the results are not representative of their true level of mastery of the course material, may apply for special consideration through the formal university process. The applicability and academic remedy/action associated with the special consideration process is listed for each assessment item below.

For the test and examination, the mark on the alternative will replace the original mark in the course grade calculation unless a student declines or does not respond to the offer of the alternative exam, in which case the original mark will be used. Students will not be advised of their original mark as part of this process. All communication associated with special considerations will be conducted using official UC email accounts. The offer to sit an alternative assessment will come with a date and time. Students will have a clearly specified amount of time to respond to the offer. Failure to respond in the specified time frame will be interpreted as a declined offer.

Please refer to the University Special Consideration Regulations and Special Consideration Policies and Procedures documents for more information on the acceptable grounds for special consideration and the application process.

Course communication

The LEARN web-based course management software is used in this course.  Course readings, on-line lectures, sample problems and solutions, etc. will be posted on this system. Various forms of feedback and support with also be on Learn.  Students will submit their reports using Learn.  All marks will be shown on Learn.  Email notices will be sent to you via Learn.  It is your responsibility to check Learn frequently regarding any questions about the course. Before you send an email to an instructor, be sure to check responses to other students’ questions on Learn.

Students who need additional help (tutoring) or have a dispute with their marks should contact the course coordinator (not the tutors) to discuss this.  Students who need to discuss extensions, special needs, access to Gradescope, Learn matters, etc., should contact the course manager, Roger Chen, roger.chen@canterbury.ac.nz