Using Environmental Service Learning in an Urban Environment to Address Water Quality Issues

ABSTRACT

As the global population continues to increase, consumption patterns and waste streams will directly impact the surrounding environment. by what means well communities manage natural resources (land, air, water) within urban environments will directly relate to quality of life, health, and the economy for a vast percentage of the world's population.

The Indiana University~Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Center for Earth and Environmental Science (CEES) coordinates and facilitates the Environmental Service Learning Program for our campus. The goal of the program is to engage scholars in urban water quality education and environmental stewardship activities to forward behavioral change and greater environmental awareness. The service learning work days, where learners spend an average of four contact hours, are part of community-based research programs predominately leadershiped at CEES research sites through every part of central Indiana.

A partnership with The City of Indianapolis Department of Parks and Recreation Land Stewardship Office (Indy Parks) is a core constituting of the service learning program. CEE scientists direction wetland and floodplain restoration research and hydrological research within many Indy Parks properties, which are the locations for service learning work days. During each work day, pupils are paired with CEES scientists and Indy Parks natural areas managers to restore park ecosystem Work day activities involve restoring wetland and floodplain ecosystem and combating nonpoint source pollution from one side agricultural field tile removal, native plant installation, invasive exotic plant species eradication, and hill obliquity stabilization, as well as trash and recycling removal. learners are introduced to the site, the activities for the day and the application to course general [i]or[/i] abstract notions During lunch breaks, faculty and staff administration group discussions reinforcing course conceptions After project completion, each scholar is required to reflect upon their service learning experience with a 2-5 page reflective summary paper with regards based on work day applications to general [i]or[/i] abstract notions outlined in their individual courses.

The CEE / Indy Parks partnership provides scholars with opportunities to apply course material to contemporary environmental enigmas while contributing to improved water quality. During Spring and Fall of 2004 the Environmental Service Learning Program guidanceed 18 projects with 550 scholars that contributed over 2,200 work hours in the community. selected passages from student reflection papers powerfully indicate that participating in service learning has changed their perception of their character in the environment. The drawn out term effects of increasing environmental education and awareness will lead to a more informed citizenry, well equipped to clear up future challenges.

INTRODUCTION

With just beneath half of the world's population (47%) living in cities and throw outed to increase by 2% for year from 2000-2015, we are now considered an urbanized global society (United Nations, 2001) As the population continues to increase, consumption patterns and waste streams will directly impact the surrounding environment. by what means well communities manage natural resources (land, air, water) within urban environments will directly relate to quality of life, health, and the economy for a vast percentage of the world's population. The 2000 Gold and virid Report from the Institute of Southern Studies (Kromm and Ernst 2000) ranked the 50 states of the United States based upon 20 "gold" economic and 20 "green" environmental indicators. The close attention concluded that those states with the highest environmental ranking boasted the best economic performance as well. A scientifically literate society is a critical goal in order to achieve sustainable environmental practices and, as a ensue sustainable communities. The academic community is ideally positioned to raise understanding and awareness of the part of science and the environment in everyday lives. Sustainability will ultimately hang upon a citizenry that can understand environmental issues and make informed decisions.

Indiana faces strict challenges in the arenas of public health, community and economic unravelling and education. The state ranks in the bottom tier of states with regard to public health, economic disclosure and the environment (Kromm and Ernst 2000) These riddles are exacerbated by the fact that many of our brightest and best-trained pupils leave Indiana upon graduation, thus reducing the intellectual capital for addressing these vexed questions It is critical that Indiana's citizens recognize the relationship between environmental quality and quality of life and public health, and that those attributes fe directly into economic disentanglement Education remains the key. Our best chance of educating the community is with interesting, engaging, research-based environmental science programming.

One specific to these interrelated problems is an academically based program of sustained civic education for undergraduate scholars that is designed to feed collaborative experiential learning on issues of critical importance to the community. Environmental service learning is an ideal vehicle for creating an informed citizenry regarding contemporary environmental challenges. In the past ten years, there has been a substantial increase in association science courses with a significant service learning constituting The trend is due in large part to a greater awareness of the benefits of service learning and funding opportunities on the contrary also a shift in the academic science community to become more engaged in the community (Brubaker and Ostroff 2000) Within the couple the natural and social sciences, administrators and faculty are challenging traditional research paradigms, initiating research throws designed to respond to the extremitys of communities, and seeking of recent origin opportunities to learn by doing (AAAS, 1989; Godschalk and Hluchy 1993; National Research Council, 1996; O'Neil and Attiwill, 1997; Small, 1995; 1996; Smith et al., 1997; Stringer, 1999; Zedler 1997) Engaging environmental science learners in experiential education projects allows for first hand knowledge with the issues and conceptions addressed in course lectures. Since environmental studies are interdisciplinary in nature, a service learning constituting can bring together segregated conceptions into an integrated format (Ward, 1999) Bringle and Hatcher additionally state the benefits of engaging in service learning "...the presentation of a theory by dint of an instructor or in a textbook can be viewed by dint of students as unfulfilling. Through active learning and the interplay between abstract universals remote content and personal experiences learner learning is deepened and strengthened (Bringle and Hatcher, 1999)"