Build It! Bioremediation Lab 1
Description
Build It! Bioremediation Lab is a guided, hands-on virtual lab that teaches students how microbes and plants clean polluted soil, water and air, starting from zero. Guided by a friendly lab character, students build five real remediation systems step by step: a biopile for diesel-contaminated soil, a permeable reactive barrier with enhanced reductive dechlorination for solvent-polluted groundwater, a constructed wetland for wastewater, a biofilter for hydrogen sulfide odour, and a monitoring setup that proves biodegradation has occurred. Each component, from liners and aeration pipes to reeds, iron filings and bacteria, is first explained in simple language with realistic illustrations and photos, then dragged into place by hand, and finally shown working through animation. Worked examples cover half-life, removal efficiency and elimination capacity, short practice questions follow each project, and a final quiz with a certificate completes the lab. The lab works on phones, tablets and computers, in English and Arabic.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this lab, students will be able to explain what bioremediation is and identify the conditions microbes need to degrade pollutants, including oxygen, nutrients, moisture, temperature and pH. They will be able to describe the components and function of a biopile and compare it with landfarming, composting and SVE-bioventing, as well as explain how a permeable reactive barrier and enhanced reductive dechlorination remove chlorinated solvents from groundwater, including the PCE → TCE → cis-DCE → VC → ethene pathway. Students will also be able to describe the aerobic, anoxic and anaerobic zones of a constructed wetland and the microbes active in each, explain how a Thiobacillus biofilter removes hydrogen sulfide and when a biotrickling filter is preferred, and calculate half-life, removal efficiency (RE) and elimination capacity (EC). Finally, they will be able to select appropriate monitoring tools (GC-MS, ICP-MS, qPCR and CSIA) and combine lines of evidence to confirm that biodegradation, not dilution, has taken place.