earticle

영어

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the heavy metal pollution of playgrounds of elementary schools in the Ulsan Metropolitan City. Soil pollution is one of the most dangerous problems of the utmost concern to both children and teachers. The result of this study would be an educational datum for improving children's health and establishing educational policy. Methods: For the analysis, fifteen representative schools were selected from five sample areas such as Dong-gu, Nam-gu, Jung-gu, Buk-gu and Ulju-gun of the Ulsan city. And from each school playground, soil was extracted from five spots and mingled into one sample. These fifteen samples were pretreated by the microwave extraction method, and the extracted heavy metals(As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr⁶⁺, Zn and Hg) were quantified by the ICP(Inductively Coupled Plasma) system. Results: The results of the analysis shows that the level of heavy metal pollution of elementary school playgrounds in Ulsan city did not exceed the permitted limit of each heavy metal. This means that the soil pollution of playgrounds in the Ulsan Metropolitan City is not so serious as it is expected. But it should be added that the soil is not too safe to be ignored.