Heat Stress Exposure Limits
(worth 20% of the final mark)

Introduction to the assignment:
Heat stress is a real concern in many workplaces across the country and the world with workers dying from heat stress across the globe. And yet, despite this concern, little appears to be happening in the way of exposure limits in Canadian workplaces and internationally as well.
The purpose of this assignment is to look at heat stress from a:
 Provincial,
 Federal, and
 International perspective,
and determine what the maximum value is, and if there is none, what standard do they follow, such as ACGIH, ISO or SEI or some other internationally recognized standard.
The task:
Write a short research paper identifying what exposure limits or criteria each province uses and set up a table comparing each. If there are no direct limits identified, indicate what legislation may indirectly apply. By way of example for ergonomics, there is nothing in legislation under the OHSA in Ontario except the due diligence clause “taking all precautions reasonable for the protection of the worker.”
Do the same for the federal government in comparison with other global nations, what exposure criteria they use, how they come about setting upper limits if any and set the whole thing up in table format. You will need to identify their legislation that deals with heat exposure including the provinces.
You should then discuss the global issue, i.e. provincial versus federal versus international. Identify if anyone has got it right, the pros and cons, and potential challenges of setting heat exposure limits and offer recommendations.
You should also provide a conclusion for your report.
How to complete the task:
The CCOHS website should be very useful to you for this assignment for the provincial, and federal values.
For international values, use your preferred search engine and type in the name of the country and then the words “heat stress exposure limits” or other similar words and see what you come up with. If the country does not have a set temperature value, it should still tell you whether they follow ACGIH, ISO or possibly SEI or other body’s guidelines. If you are having trouble with international, remember there is the OSHA in the United States. Other countries to look at would be possibly New Zealand, and Australia.
You can also try this link: http://osha.europa.eu/en/topics/ds/oel/nomembers.stm to see what other countries have.

*On another note, if you copy or cut and paste any tables from websites, or copy phrases, you must indicate where they came from as per the instructions in the Bibliography.
Report format:
The value for this assignment will be 20 points which will represent a maximum of 20% of the total grade for the course.
The 20 points will be divided into:
1. 1 point for the Cover Page with title, author (you), date, intended recipient (me), etc. (in your case, also course title and course number).

2. 1 point for the Purpose of the Report which explains briefly in a paragraph or two why the report is being done.

3. 2 points for the Executive summary which is a Reader’s Digest version of the report, or a Cole’s notes version which summarizes the entire report in one to two paragraphs along with the major recommendations. It is not meant to be an introduction or a purpose for the report. It is often used for lengthy reports.

4. 1 point for the Table of Contents with pages numbered in the report.

5. 2 point for the Bibliography (title, author, publisher, edition, year of publication and city – if web site, name of the web site, the information that was accessed, the specific link in the web site and date accessed.

6. 4 points for the Provincial (all provinces) and National (federal jurisdiction) Perspective, comparing them and what they use. This can be in table format, similar to what CCOHS has.

7. 4 points for the International Perspective and comparing them and what they use. You should look at what at least 4 other countries are doing.

8. 4 points for the Discussion and Recommendations (why is there so little out there in terms of a set value; what do most regulatory bodies use; and what should employers adopt in the absence of regulatory values.

9. 1 point for the Conclusions.
The report should be typed, either 10 or 11 Arial or Calibri font. If you wish you can use Arial Narrow 9 or 10 point for your table, if you wish to put the information in table format. The report must be in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat.
Please make sure your name appears in the file name.
Once the report is ready you can upload it into the Assignment section in Blackboard.