Analytical aspects of undergraduate courses in environmental studies, geology, chemistry, and biology can be substantially strengthened with contemporary instrumentation for atomic absorption spectrophotometry and ion chromatography. These instruments are being used in several courses, providing the basis for field and laboratory activities in the interdisciplinary course, Environmental Biogeochemistry. Student-conducted class projects involve application of assays using the new instruments to answer questions about constituency of rainfall, stem flow, surface runoff, reservoir loading and discharge, ground waters, soils, sediments, etc. The instruments are also being used in a large and expanding undergraduate scientific research program in which many students' projects rely on environmental analyses to answer both basic and applied questions.
