Meeting Abstract

P2.60  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Learning with and from our students WILSON, BA; Texas A & M International University brittan.wilson@tamiu.edu

Many ecological problems are presented in a way which makes people, especially non-scientists, feel they are unable to connect them to their own lives. In my Environmental Science class (2008-2009 school year), I assigned a class project which focuses on making ecology accessible to non-majors. The students who participated were primarily business, marketing and journalism majors. The purpose of the project was to increase the students’ ability to embrace their local ecology, and to connect regional issues to larger ecological problems. The students were asked to focus on personal choices they could make that would impact a local ecological issue, and to present it in a manner that would appeal to a target age group. Through this project, the students were better able to grasp both the scale and impact of local environmental concerns. In addition, they were able to translate this level of understanding into real-world solutions utilizing their personal specialties to address the issues of their choice. We are now working to have their work presented to their local communities, to inform and education through displays at the Boston Science Museum and throughout downtown Boston.