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Citizens First! Democracy, Social Responsibility and Chemistry Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by EAST CAROLINA UNIV on 01/11/19. For personal use only.
Introduction to Environmental Issues as a Chemistry for Non-Science Majors Course Mary E. Railing* Department of Chemistry, Wheeling Jesuit University, Wheeling, West Virginia 26003, United States *E-mail:
[email protected] The course was designed around six global ecological challenges in order to engage the interest of non-science majors and to prepare them to become environmentally responsible citizens. Each topic began with a real, current case study. After the chemistry and environmental science necessary to understand the topic was introduced, students participated in a project, class activity or laboratory activity. To help students think critically about human-environmental interactions and sustainability, and to make decisions based on a broader world view of the importance of protecting the earth and all on it, each topic was also viewed from economic, ethical and spiritual lenses. The integration of these views was tied to their service learning project – development of a vertical hydroponic system for a local food pantry. Topics for the course included: food, biodiversity, natural resources, energy, water, and global climate change.
Introduction Introduction to Environmental Issues was designed with an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to understanding human impact on the natural world and current environmental problems (1). The course examined six major global environmental challenges: food quality and availability, declining biodiversity, natural resource extraction, shift to renewable energy, water quality and availability, and global climate change (2). Information from various science © 2018 American Chemical Society
disciplines was introduced as needed for each topic. In order to help students think critically about human-environment interactions and sustainability, and to integrate what they have learned in diverse settings, each topic was also viewed from economic, ethical and spiritual lenses (3). It was hoped that the added dimension of ethical and spiritual perspectives along with a service learning project would lead to an increase in students’ affective qualities and ultimately to action. The main goal of the course was to provide students with a good balance of scientific knowledge and ethical understanding about environmental issues, the desire to make personal changes, and to make decisions based on a broader world view of the importance of protecting the earth and all upon it. The need for universities to education all students about environmental issues has never been more urgent. Environmental issues play a major role in the health and economics of those who live in Appalachia. Wheeling Jesuit University (WJU), a small, private university located in the northern panhandle of West Virginia, is intensely affected by multiple environmental problems. A primary aspect of WJU’s mission is to provide educational opportunities for Appalachian families. The student body is primarily from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, with many students being the first generation in their families to attend college. Families of many students are tied in some way to extractive industries. There is a common belief that these are necessary jobs and that any criticism about the extractive process being harmful is an attack on one’s livelihood. Therefore, the incorporation of an economic perspective is essential to be able to dialog with community members.
Course Design In order to demonstrate to students their ability to find and understand scientific knowledge even after graduation, online material was used exclusively. The primary source was the Healing Earth e-textbook (http:// healingearth.ifep.net/). Healing Earth was developed by Loyola University of Chicago and an international group of educators in order “to address the major environmental concerns of our time through an educational resource and develop collaboration among teachers and learning in secondary school, university, and adult education contexts.” Each chapter in Healing Earth contains scientific knowledge relevant to the topic, ethical analysis, spiritual reflection, and a call to action. Knowledge from various scientific disciplines was blended to present a seamless scientific view, with additional scientific content included at times. While all of the scientific disciplines were included to some extent, overall there was more focus on chemistry subject material in the course. For some topics, students analyzed additional information from a variety of sources, including news sources, journals, and NASA sources. Care was taken to address various points of view. The foundation of the course is that it is the responsibility of citizens to understand why protecting the environment is important and to be knowledgeable about the implications of not protecting the environment. Meaningful dialog 44
benefits from understanding different points of view including the costs and benefits to individuals as well as global effects. Therefore, discussions included how personal lifestyle choices and public policies affect the wellbeing of the natural world and the human beings who depend on it. Rather than the more traditional lecture model, this course utilized student-centered, active engagement to interest and empowers students (4). The combination of individual intellectual exploration and collaboration with others will be accomplished by combining the best features from case study, problem-based learning (PBL) (5), flipped-classroom (6) and service-learning methods (7). Each chapter in Healing Earth begins with a real case study to engage students’ interest. In order to ensure students completed the assigned readings prior to class meetings, an online assessment format was selected. (McGraw-Hill Connect) (8). Additional questions were developed to supplement those available from McGraw-Hill. The online homework questions included a few recall of facts or concepts. These were followed with several questions addressing contextual comprehension. After a class discussion to answer questions and ensure students understood the basic scientific background, students engaged in a variety of activities. In some cases additional information was presented for students to analyze in group work. In class activities included discussions of news or journal articles and debates on ethical and economic challenges with select topics. Four laboratory activities were included to demonstrate the experimental nature of science and allow further exploration of these topics. I intentionally did not create special labs, as I wanted students to experience, “real” labs - although necessarily shortened. After three of the chapters, students had an additional assignment which required that they defend or evaluate an ethical position related to a controversial topic. The class participated in a group service learning project – development of a vertical hydroponic system for a local food pantry. Two guest speakers provided additional perspectives designed to deepen the students understanding of the complexity of the different issues. At the beginning of the semester, Mike Woods, S.J. introduced the class to food, spirituality, and sustainability. Towards the end of the semester, Lea Krivchenia, Assistant Country Director GOAL Syria, spoke to the class, via skype, about the effects of climate change on the conflict in the Middle East.
Course objectives stated in the syllabus: By the end of the semester, students should be able to: Locate and understand scientific knowledge related to environmental issues Describe the value and limitations of science in understanding environmental issues Discuss ethical challenges and possible responses to environmental issues Discuss how personal lifestyle choices and public policies affect the wellbeing of the natural world Clarify your personal values relative to environmental justice issues
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Course Topics • •
• • • •
Food, including intensive agriculture, fertilizers, organic food, commercial animal production Biodiversity, including ecosystem services provided by biodiversity, the relationship between biodiversity and evolution, major biomes and aquatic ecosystems, current threats to biodiversity Natural resources, including minerals and elements, geology of natural resources, natural resource extraction Energy, including energy forms and processes, laws of thermodynamics, photosynthesis, renewable and nonrenewable energy Water, including structure and properties of water, hydrologic cycle, sources and uses of water Global climate change, including climate, weather, atmosphere, defining and detecting climate change
Specific Course Details The class met twice a week for 75 minutes. On average there were four class meetings devoted to each topic.
Food and Agriculture
During the first class meeting we discussed the idea of a scientific world view. The topics covered included the scientific method, the difference between data, results, scientific laws and theories and methods of scientific communication. Students were asked to write their first impressions about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) and Organic foods. Students were then assigned one of these topics and a pro or con position for the first debate. Our 1st guest speaker joined us for the second class. Mike Woods, S.J., led a discussion on food, sustainability & spirituality. This led to the next class which met in WJU’s on-campus organic garden. After helping with harvesting vegetables and weeding, students performed simple soil test using purchased kits and discussed soil types. We ended with a taste test – tomatoes just picked from the garden and hydroponic tomatoes from the grocery store. The fourth and last class on the food topic was a debate on organic food, GMOs, and CAFO. Each pair of students had 5 minutes to present their case, after each pro & con on a topic, the students engaged in a discussion on that topic. 46
Biodiversity The beginning discussion on the effects of the loss of biodiversity in agriculture led to a more general discussion of the benefits of biodiversity and the services that are accomplished by a health ecosystem. The second class on this topic was a lab. This first lab was a shortened version of the Shannon’s Biodiversity Index lab done in the General Biology laboratory courses at WJU. Each pair of students was assigned to count the number of several plant and animal species in a defined area on campus. From this they calculated a Shannon diversity index. During the next class meeting students compared the diversities of different areas and discussed representative sampling. Since most of these students had not taken college science lab courses, we worked on writing their formal lab report together. The final class meeting on this topic was spent examining several case studies that demonstrate the negative consequences of biodiversity loss.
Natural Resources The curse of abundant resources. The introductory case study in Healing Earth for this topic highlighted the Democratic Republic of Congo. Students were able to immediately see that WV could easily have been a comparable case study – both are rich in natural resources but economically poor. This topic allowed discussion of elements and the periodic table. We focused specifically on the natural resources in WV including timber, coal, and natural gas. Class debates examined the conflict between jobs (economics) and the environment degradation from the various types of extractive industries. Spiritual and theological perspectives were incorporated with extra assigned readings from the Appalachian Pastoral Letters - This Land Is Home to Me (9) and At Home in the Web of Life (10). We were able to join a theology class for a discussion on the moral responsibility for caring for the environment. Discussions on extractive industries in this chapter led directly to the next two chapters on energy and water. In WV, coal and natural gas are the major extractive industries. Water usage and potential water pollution is an important concern with regard to the extraction and processing of both coal and natural gas.
Energy The energy chapter examined the renewable and non-renewable energy sources. In this section, more in class time was devoted to understanding the subject material which included energy forms and sources, laws of thermodynamics, energy transfer in living systems, energy conversion of devices, strengths and drawbacks of each type of energy generation. Students did a simple energy audit exercise from an Environment & Sustainability laboratory course. 47
While coal and natural gas are the primary energy sources in WV, the coal mining and processing and fracking for natural gas both contribute to significant water pollution.
Water During the water chapter, we spent only one day in the classroom. We were able to visit the local water treatment plant, and students performed two lab activities. The first water activity was from the Introduction to Ecology lab. Students utilized a LaMotte water quality kit to measure pH, nitrates, and conductivity of the stream that borders campus. We then discussed what these terms meant and what they indicated about the health of the stream. For the second lab we investigated possible metal contamination of surface waters around Wheeling, West Virginia. Specifically students examined the possible leaching of metals from old coal mines in Ohio County into streams by analyzing the water samples for iron (Fe) and Manganese (Mn) using atomic absorption spectroscopy (AA). This lab had the added benefit of demonstration the persistence of environmental damage.
Climate Change Background material for this chapter included temperature scales, how greenhouse gasses function and their natural and anthropogenic sources. During class we looked at NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration websites. In addition to discussing what the data on these sites indicates, we examined non-science websites and discussed how to evaluate the reliability of information. Our 2nd speaker, Lea Krivchenia, Assistant Country Director GOAL Syria, spoke to the class, via skype, about the effects of climate change on the Middle East and conflict. This led to the final discussion on politics and climate change.
Student Perspectives Student evaluations of the course are summarized in Table 1 below. With only eight students in the class it is impossible to generate any type of statistics from these evaluations. The course was designed for 16-18 students. Any more students would make the lab activities more challenging. All eight students responded to the end of semester course evaluations. Generally, students believed that the course objectives were met. 48
Table 1. Student Evaluations Average response
Course Objectives On a scale of 1-5, please evaluate to what extent were these course objectives met? With 1 = not met at all, 5 = sufficient for a100 level course. 1
Locate and understand scientific knowledge related to environmental issues
4.5
2
Describe the value and limitations of science in understanding environmental issues
4.5
3
Discuss ethical challenges and possible responses to environmental issues
4.5
4
Discuss how personal lifestyle choices and public policies affect the wellbeing of the natural world
5
5
Clarify your personal values relative to environmental justice issues
5
Conclusion: What Worked Well and What Did Not Work Healing Earth as the textbook delivered the integrated and interdisciplinary perspective that this course intended to provide. I felt it advantageous and necessary to provide additional scientific material. Additionally, the course could be tailored toward inclusion of more chemistry content. Necessary in that this course is intended to be a core science offering and therefore should be heavy in science content. The online homework for enforcing pre-reading and accessing students understanding of the basic science also worked very well. McGraw-Hill’s Connect was reasonably priced and flexible. Other online platforms were not investigated. The student debates improved over the semester with students becoming more comfortable speaking and I did a better job of making sure they understood their responsibilities and assigned position. The students enjoyed performing the labs. Their understanding of the results was reasonably good. Not surprisingly, expecting non-science majors to write lab reports did not work. Getting the students to understand the format and style was painful to all. In the future students will be given a guided worksheet instead of writing a lab report (11). Beginning the course with food and working in the garden made the importance of the topic immediately comprehensible. The less guided open discussions on articles or case studies was less successful than the focused debates. Students tended not to be willing to say anything that might be controversial. From students’ perspective the service learning project was successful. The project was to build a vertical hydroponic growing wall at the neighborhood food pantry. The growing wall was made up of lettuce, spinach and a variety of herbs. The idea was initially suggested by Chemistry and Environment & Sustainability upper-level students who were engaged in hydroponic research. Both the director of our Catholic Charities 49
Neighborhood center, which runs the food pantry, and staff from Grow Ohio Valley (Grow OV) were enthusiastic about this idea. Grow OV donated hydroponic channels that they were not using. These two organizations partnered with me to submit a proposal to Try this WV for funding to purchase supplies for this project. The hydroponic system was successfully built and the students enjoyed working on the project and felt “good” that they were providing a way for the Neighborhood Center’s food pantry to have fresh lettuce, spinach and herbs. However, a meaningful service learning project should also include relationship building with the community partner. Due to my inexperience with service learning design there was limited interaction with the clients at the Neighborhood Center. Additionally, it will be a challenge to identify a project each time this course is taught. Future service learning projects might include working with existing citizen scientist groups (i.e. Down Stream Alliance, Friends of Decker’s Creek).
Acknowledgments This course - Introduction to Environmental Issues: a holistic approach was developed with support from a NASA/WV Space Grant Consortium College Course Development grant and the Appalachian Institute at Wheeling Jesuit University. The mission of the Appalachian Institute is to promote research, service and advocacy for and with the people of Appalachia to build healthier, stronger, and more sustainable communities. Environmental issues play a major role in the health and economics of those who live in Appalachia. Funding for the hydroponic system was provided by Try This WV through a joint proposal with GrowOV and Catholic Charities WV (12).
References 1.
2. 3. 4.
5.
6.
Koether, M. C.; McGarey, D.; Patterson, M.; Williams, D. J. Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Education: Environmental Studies. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 934. Healing Earth Welcome. https://healingearth.ijep.net/welcome (accessed April 13, 2018). Miller, H. K. Undergraduates in a Sustainability Semester: Models of Social Change for Sustainability. J. Environ. Educ. 2016, 47, 52–67. Hibbard, L.; Sung, S.; Wells, B. Examining the Effectiveness of Semi-SelfPaced Flipped Learning Format in a College General Chemistry Sequence. J. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93, 24–30. Jannson, S.; Soderstrom, H.; Andersson, P. L.; Nording, M. L. Implementation of Problem-Based Learning in Environmental Chemistry. J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92, 2080–2086. van Vliet, E. A.; Winnips, J. C.; Brouwer, N. Flipped-Class Pedagogy Enhances Student Metacognition and Collaborative-Learning Strategies in Higher Education but Effect Does Not Persist. CBE-Life Sci. Educ. 2015, 14, 17. 50
7.
Jensen, J. L.; Kummer, T. A.; Godoy, P. D. Improvements from a Flipped classroom May Simply Be the Fruits of Active Learning. CBE-Life Sci. Educ. 2015, 14, 5. 8. McGraw Hill Connect. http://connect.mheducation.com/connect/login/ index.htm?&BRANDING_VARIANT_KEY=en_us_default_default&node= connect_app_17_202 (accessed April 13, 2018). 9. The Catholic Bishops of Appalachia. This Land is Home to Me: A Pastoral Letter on the Poverty and Powerlessness in Appalachia; Published by the Catholic Committee of Appalachia: 1975. 10. The Catholic Bishops of Appalachia. At Home in the Web of Life: A Pastoral Message on Sustainable Communities in Appalachia Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of This Land is Home to Me; Published by the Catholic Committee of Appalachia: 1995. 11. Reviewer suggestion. 12. An article with pictures was included in the Chronicle – a magazine for the alumni and friends of Wheeling Jesuit University. http://wju.edu/alumni/ chronicle/Flip/Fall2016/Fall2016.html#p=44 (accessed April 13, 2018).
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