Campus Compact » Program Models Service By Issue – Environmental Issues

Environmental Conservation Course

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Students in G315 Environmental Conservation Course spend two Saturdays with the Nature Conservancy on site with a naturalist eliminating non-native species and planting native species. The naturalist is available for environmental questions while the students contribute maintaining the conservation areas.

Service-Learning in Geography

tdomf_26a6d — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 00:00:00 +0000

Service Learning is an important component of undergraduate education in the Department of Geography at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Students enrolled in our introductory physical geography courses have the opportunity to serve in various ongoing environmental projects at local parks and urban watershed areas throughout the city of Indianapolis. Participants contribute to the restoration and conservation of fragile urban ecosystems. Students have also participated in similar projects with the Indiana Nature Conservancy at other locations throughout the state. In the Fall of 2003, 29 students participated in designated work days across central Indiana.

Please contact Nathan Polderman (npolderm {at} iupui(.)edu), Tim Brothers (tbrother {at} iupui(.)edu), or Bob Beck (rbeck {at} iupui(.)edu) for more information.

A Pilot Project to Teach Basic Botany to Fifth Graders

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Students enrolled in the “”Plants and Society”" course have the option of participating in the Botany Service Learning internship. In additon to the three-credit course and one-credit lab students fulfill a three-credit internship where they plant gardens at ASU and the local middle school and teach school children about plants and their life cycle. Students reflect on their work by posting to an on-line class message board twice a week and responding to classmates postings. Their grade in the class is based on their postings, on-site participation, and work with the children,

Contact: Diann Peart, PhD. at 602.965.3266 or AODEP {at} asuvm.inre.asu(.)edu

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Gardening for Humanity

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As part of both introductory and upper-level biology courses students studied the wildlife in a water recharge area and the effects of global warming and pollution in that area. At the end of the course the students wrote reseach papers and shared what they learned with local children from the Boys and Girls Club.

Contact: Dr. Pushpa Ramakrishna at RAMAKRISHNA {at} cgc.maricopa(.)edu or 602.732.7219
Website: http://personalweb.cgc.maricopa.edu/pecos_faculty/pushpa/web/ecology.html

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Community Gardens and Native Plant Restoration

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Students from CSUMB helped neighborhing community groups develop native plant gardens as part of a program called Return of the Natives. Students also involved at-risk youths in the project as a way of getting them interested in science and college. For Earth Day students brought the teenagers to the CSUMB campus for restoration planting. The Pebble Beach Company’s Environmental Divison has agreed to mentor service learning students in landscaping with native plants for the next time the course is taught. The interdisciplinary approach appeals to majors from science, education, and other fields.

Contact: Laura Lee Lienk, Return of the Natives Coordinator, 408.582.3689 or Laura_Lienk {at} monterey(.)edu

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Study structured around service: an interdisciplinary approach

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

When academic study is structured around service, rather than the other way around, lines between disciplines can become blurred. Service-based courses often require an interdisciplinary approach, because the problems of a community cannot be addressed through a single discipline. A new course package at San Jose State University will focus on local parks from the perspective of three disciplines: biology, political science, and engineering. The added bonus: as students work to increase access to the parks and enhance bio-diversity of plant life, the theme-based package the courses intertwined around a single theme will fulfill their general education core requirement.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Generations in Exchange

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Adults can learn a great deal about ingenuity and determination from children. An “”Eco-Troop”" of fourth and fifth graders in Florida grew fond of the scrub jay, an endangered species that is so friendly the bird will eat a peanut from an open hand. The students were determined to protect the scrub jay. Oblivious of the monumental difficulties involved in buying the land necessary to preserve the scrub jay’s local habitat, they set to work. The school principal and their teacher brought the parents together with the children for weekly strategy sessions. Teachers and children refused to allow the adults to co-opt the agenda. Students, their parents, and local environmental groups made intergenerational presentations to the School Board, the Indian River County Commission, their congressman, and the secretary of the US Interior Department. As an intergenerational group the friends of scrub jay were successful. Eco-Troop received a $200,000 matching grant from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The above is one of several intergenerational programs featured in the Constitutional Rights Foundation Network magazine, Winter 2001. Written by Wendy Schaetzel Lesko

Service Learning Meets the Environment at Clear Lake

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Joel Ostroff, an associate professor of microbiology at Brevard Community College, has designed a microbiology service learning component where students test the school’s lake water to determine if it is safe for plants, animals, and humans. Students from the course are trained in the use and maintainance of the equipment and in turn teach local underprivileged teenagers how to conduct the tests as well. Brevard students are not required to participate in the service, but recieve an extra 10% on their test grade, which accounts for 50% of their course grade.

Contact: Joel Ostroff at Ostroff_J {at} Al.Brevard.cc.fl(.)us or 407.632.1111 ext 62550

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Think Globally, Act Locally, Model Individually

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Central Florida Community College’s environmental service course linked community service, participation in the political process and public policy development through the study of environmental science and student service. The course (which fulfills biological or physical science credit for participating students) was divided into three parts in which students learned about global environmental problems, worked to solve local environmental problems, and strove to become individual agents of change. The course’s community contact and group research helped students understand how to use the political process to address community problems.

Website: http://www.cfcc.cc.fl.us/las/science/

Transformation of a sewer plant into a fish farm

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Nova Southeastern University, near Ft. Lauderdale, took over an abandoned sewer plant that attracted vandals, and then sandblasted every crevice and built a fish farm in it. Nova Professors and students conduct research and work with local residents to raise 50,000 tilapia (a light fish that tastes like trout), but once the farm makes a profit, the community will reap the financial rewards. “”You can see the neighborhood improving, because there s civic pride,”" says oceanographer Bart Baca, center director. (David Marcus, U. News & World Report, May 24, 1999, p. 61.)

Contact: Bart Baca, Director of Aquaculture Programs, baca {at} nova(.)edu

Davie Aquaculture Research Center web site: http://www.nova.edu/ocean/aqua/ (this is the former sewage plant where the fish are grown)

The Service-Learning Cross-Curricular Emphasis and the “”2+4=Service on Common Ground”" initiative

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The mission of the Liberal Arts program at KCC is to provide broad-based, integrated, cross-curricular general education courses for students who transfer to four-year institutions or embark on career paths, and instill a desire for life-long learning and personal development. In pursuit of this mission, KCC Provost Dr. John Morton engages in numerous campus-community partnerships and builds leadership collaborations with University of Hawai i (UH) Senior Vice-President and Community College Chancellor, Dr. Joyce Tsunoda, Dean of the UH College of Social Science, Dr. Dick Dubanoski, and UH President, Dr. Kenneth Mortimer. In addition, Dr. Morton has created an intellectual environment that supports learning-centered and faculty driven initiatives, and in particular, the Service-Learning Cross-Curricular Emphasis.

One outcome of these campus-community partnerships and leadership collaborations is the very successful “”2+4=Service on Common Ground”" initiative funded by the Corporation for National Service and the Campus Compact National Center for Community Colleges. From 1997-2000, this initiative developed five major pathways engaging more than 70 faculty and 1,500 students at KCC and UHM. The pathways were developed to engage students in service to their community, and integrate their service with academic study in general education core courses and disciplinary majors. The pathways included:

Partnering with the Community – Students chose to serve at more than 70 community-based organizations and two dozen K-12 schools.
Educating for Citizenship – Students tutored hundreds of elderly Chinese immigrants to pass the U.S. Citizenship Test.
Adopting an Ahupua a – Students cared for the environment (our literal common ground) between Diamond Head and Manoa Valley. An ahupua a is a traditional Hawaiian land tenure division from the mountains to the sea. Both KCC and UHM students developed environmental responsibility stewardship skills in our Waikiki Ahupua a.
Celebrating Teen Reading - Students led reading circles with hundreds of local teenagers and built critical literacy skills and authentic interpersonal relationships. Funding from the Hawaii Council for the Humanities also supported this pathway and an annual Teen Reading Festival where students met face-to-face with the authors of the books shared in the reading circles.
Caring Long-term – Students provided direct services to 100 home-bound elderly through Project Dana, Hospice Hawaii, and numerous long-term care programs.

Faculty partnerships also resulted in a sustainable faculty community that is now exploring new collaborations in service-learning, cultural diversity, community development, technology integration and teacher preparation as well as fast-track transfer agreements.

KCC Service-Learning faculty have taken the lead in developing new General Education Academic Skills Standards emphasizing “”Understanding Self and Society”" to prepare students for lives as civically engaged local, national and global citizens. The UHM College of Arts and Sciences is drafting a new mission statement which emphasizes preparing students for lifelong active learning, productive careers, personal enrichment, involved citizenship, and the challenges of the future. Thus, for KCC and UHM, service-learning is not only changing how we teach but leveraging institutional and curricular support for what we teach the skills and intellect for engaged citizenship.

A recent Carnegie Foundation external assessment states, “”It would be wonderful if all community colleges would take up the challenge that KCC has set for itself: to educate all students to understand the connections between their learning, their work, and their larger communities, and to help them take seriously their role in improving those communities.”"

Contact person: Carol Hoshiko, Dean of Business Education, Food Service, Travel Programs and Community Linkages, hoshiko {at} hawaii(.)edu

Instrumental Methods Analysis Course: reinvigorating a dull and difficult course

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

At Loyola University in Chicago, Instrumental Methods Analysis was once a course notorious for being both dull and difficult. The only students who enrolled were senior chemistry majors who were required to take the course. Faculty dreaded teaching it. But when Dr. Alannah Fitch began teaching the course, she decided that things were going to change. Dr. Fitch searched for ways to reinvigorate the course, and hit on three ideas. First, she would tie the course to social issues. This would appeal to the religious values of Loyola, a Jesuit university which had recently put particular emphasis on its service mission. There were two issues that Dr. Fitch recognized in the community, and felt her students could help to address. One was the dearth of women and minorities in the science community. The other was in the Chicago community, where there had been an increase in lead poisoning among residents due to unhealthy levels of lead in city pipes.

Dr. Fitch s second idea was to make the course more exciting and relevant to students lives. She would do this by giving students hands-on experience with science, getting them away from the numbers and chalkboards of the classroom and into communities where they could witness firsthand the useful application of otherwise remote mathematical and scientific theories.

The third goal Dr. Fitch had for her class was to maintain, and even enhance, the rigor with which students learned. Each analysis required at least sixty samples, and six hours of preparation in order to be studied properly. When students were uninterested by the course, they quickly tired of the repetitive work involved in chemical analysis. But when they were doing real work to solve real problems, when people s health and lives were riding on the calculations being done correctly, students would understand the need to engage in that level of rigorous study.

Today, the class is anything but notorious. Each semester, fifteen of Dr. Fitch s students sample and analyze the lead content of a city site. Students have tested local parks and pipes, and presented their findings to the City of Chicago. One student from Croatia brought what he learned back home and taught others to analyze the lead emissions of different gasolines.

In addition, students provide an after-school program for a group of sixty children, many of them girls and minorities who are typically not drawn to science. Students present what they have learned and teach the children to gather lead samples safely. Upon teaching children, students often realize just how much they have learned, and are forced through a different kind of rigor, this arising from the necessity of explaining concepts in terms and ideas simple enough to be understood by elementary school children.

By incorporating service-learning into her teaching, Dr. Fitch has brought both rigor and relevance to a course that was once considered little more than dull and difficult. In the process, from Dr. Fitch s experience, students now learn more, retain more, and are more excited not only about their studies, but about the meaningful application of those studies to solve real-life problems.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Bio and C.V. for Dr. Fitch: http://www.luc.edu/depts/chem/faculty/fitch/fitchgroup/Prblurb/prblurb.htm

Incinerator Dispersion Model

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

As part of a service learning course in environmental studies students created a model determining the dispersion of dioxin and other particulates in the local area from a proposed incinerator for a nerve gas stockpile. Students also spoke at forums to educate the town about the incinerator and held an on-campus symposium on the issue.

Janice L. Pearce, Assistant Professor at 606.986.9341 ext 6388 or pearce {at} berea(.)edu

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Partnering with other colleges: Land conservation effort

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Much environmental work requires a large number of people dedicated to a single, concentrated effort. This is exactly what took place at Sideling Hill Creek in Maryland when a team of students from Mount St. Mary s College, Garret Community College, and Frostburg State University joined community volunteers to engage in an environmental conservation effort. The volunteers spent the day planting pine seedlings along the creekbed. Over the course of the day, the group planted more than one thousand seedlings, covering three acres of land and widening the existing buffer along the creekbed by 200 feet.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Bringing new practices to the community

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

While the latest innovations in research and development may come quickly to large corporations, they often take longer to reach small communities. Through professional service, faculty can offer smaller organizations the benefits of cutting edge practices. For example, cornstalk testing is a new scientific method that enables farmers across the country to determine a healthy quantity of nitrogen fertilizer for use in their cornfields. Terry Morocco, a faculty member at the University of Maine in Farmington, introduced this method to local farmers and helped them apply it to their crops.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Multiple lessons from a single community problem: project around Lake Winnecook

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

In some cases, the multiple lessons that grow out of a single community problem can bring together various campus disciplines, service-learning projects, and community organizations. In Unity, Maine, a campus-wide partnership between Unity College and a neighborhood association was recently formed to address issues associated with the local lake. A grant from the National Science Foundation provided faculty members with release time while they developed related service-learning courses. The result was the development of fourteen different service-learning classes engaging in studies related to the water quality of Lake Winnecook. Classes conducted water testing, studied pollution, algae growth, and related policy issues, working with the neighborhood association to ensure the safety and quality of the lake and its habitat.

From Service Matters 1998: Engaging Higher Education In the Renewal of America s Communities and American Democracy

Website: http://www.unity.edu/ServiceLearning/default.htm

Planting Seeds for a Better Tomorrow

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

University of Southern Maine students teach local school children about ecology, conservation, and recycling as part of a service learning course about teaching environmentalism to low-income students. USM students also organize clean-ups for the children to participate in.

A senior at USM, Melissa Boyd organized the entire class and project and was asked to remain at USM to teach it again. She will gear it more towards education majors because she sees it as a tremendous opportunity for them to experiment with science teaching.

Contact: Al Kirk, Associate Professor at 207.780.4962

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

Calvin Environmental Assessment Program (CEAP): understanding the interconnections of the campus, the local ecosystem, and the surrounding communities

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

CEAP is a collaborative effort of faculty across Calvin’s campus, but mainly in the sciences, whose focus is understanding the interconnections of the campus, the local ecosystem, and the surrounding communities. The goal is to impact the College and local municipalities as well as individual behavior. In this innovative program, faculty dedicate a regular lab session or project to collecting data that contributes to an overall assessment of the environment of the campus and surrounding area. Classes form working teams related to particular environmental issues. The data forms the basis for recommended changes in campus polices, for programs that target individual behavioral changes, and for identifying issues that involve and impact the adjacent neighborhoods. The program is dramatically increasing the natural science faculty and students’ involvement in service-learning. CEAP is developing a model that can be used by other colleges and universities to move faculty to greater engagement with the local community. Imbedded in the CEAP design are several “”best practices”" in educating students for civic engagement:

CEAP is integrated with the curriculum. Faculty members re-designed existing labs and projects to connect with the CEAP program. For example: chemistry students examine the water quality of the Calvin ponds; physics students measure energy usage on campus; biology students examine the productivity of the ecosystems of the lawn and old field; and geography students study the consumption patterns of students.

CEAP creates a stronger academic community. The CEAP program was designed by a group of faculty members, representing each of the disciplines within the natural sciences at Calvin. Each year since its conception in 1997, participating faculty and newly interested faculty convene through Calvin’s faculty development program to discuss results and plan for the upcoming year. Professors from the social sciences and humanities have joined the program with their own projects.

CEAP opens up vistas for service and citizenship in a powerful way. The disciplinary content a student learns through a CEAP project is comparable to a traditional classroom, library or lab activity. The added value, however, is that the student begins to see the relevance of study and analysis for dealing with complex and pressing problems. Many students who would not consider themselves activists have the opportunity to learn more about environmental issues and what can be done to address them.

The structure of CEAP involves “”grass-roots”" energy and “”top-down”" support. There are multiple entry points for involvement in CEAP. Faculty members across the college along with students from the Environmental Stewardship Coalition are involved.

Contact person: Janel Curry (Department of Geology, Geography, and Environmental Studies) jcurry {at} calvin(.)edu

Public Health and Environmental Service on the Texas-Mexico Border

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

During Alma’s “”Spring Semester”" students take four weeks in May to study intensely one subject. One year a professor decided to teach a course on public health along the Texas-Mexican border. The class included an on-site investigation of and service to the people in the area. For the first week students studied the historical and political background of the area. Students gave 35-40 minute presentations to their classmates and were tested on the material at the end of the week.

Upon arrival in El Paso in the second week students dug a ditch for a septic tank and began to study one of three subjects: neural tube birth defects, Rio Grande toxin contamination, and waste disposal in the area. These topics were pertinent given the number of factories that set up shop right across the border so as to escape US federal regulations and higher wages.

Students grades were based upon their test scores from the first week, their daily journal entries, and their final research papers.

Contact:Edward C. Lorenz, Associate Professor 517.463.7203. E-mail at Lorenz {at} Alma(.)edu

This information originally appeared in “”Science and Society: Redefining the Relationship”" by Stephen Miller. Published by Campus Compact, 1996.

“”Biology of Global Change course: becoming an active participant in solving environmental problems

tdomf_26a6d — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

During the winter 2000 term at Carleton College, Phil Camill, Assistant Professor of Biology, taught a class entitled “”Biology of Global Change.”" Through the creative curriculum of Professor Camill with help from the two ACT service-learning student coordinators and the environmental studies intern, the students in the course were able to experience community-based learning in which they developed civic competencies and civic habits. They were given multiple opportunities to do the work of citizenship through real projects of impact and relevance that were linked to their academic learning.

A major emphasis of the “”Biology of Global Change”" class was to learn how to become an active participant in solving environmental problems. The course was split into three components. In part I of the course, students learned about scientific issues and the scientific method. Part II examined policy issues surrounding global change and part III combined both the policy and science issues learned during part I and II. The philosophy behind this construction is that the students learn the material but are then given the opportunity to apply this learning in order to begin to address problems of global change that they discover during the academic portion of the course. One student commented on the benefits of this system: “”I like the fact that we are able to act on what we learn.”" Camill saw this opportunity to act on learning missing from many traditional science classes. He thought that students need to learn how they can affect public policy now, so they can feel like active members of society as soon as they leave their undergraduate career. He states “”the service-learning component of the class gives real world, hands-on experience.”"

Students were given the option of working at a local or national level in groups or on their own. Some of the projects included:

students developed curriculum for kindergarten students that would instill the importance of environmentalism and then went into public schools and taught
students worked with the food services at Carleton to chart energy and food waste and then developed a presentation to the campus on their findings
students studied the local river to determine how and if it was being polluted and identified steps to mitigate the pollution
students created a web page to discuss environmental issues at the international scale; students computed the costs and savings of implementing solar power in homes.
Other possibilities were explained in detail on the website developed specifically for the class: http://celeste.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/classes/bio190/slp2.html.

The final day of class all the students presented their projects in poster form for the Carleton campus as well as the local community. Students comments after the class showed the positive connection they had established between academics and their application in the community: “”I thought it was a great way to both apply what we were learning in class and in general to make the connection between academics and real life. I made a connection in the wider community and made a useful contribution.”"

Websites: http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/faculty/pcamill/SLP00/SLPindex.html
http://www.acad.carleton.edu/curricular/BIOL/classes/bio190/index3.html