Dr. Wande Benka-Coker, Dickinson, Environmental Studies
Environmental Health & Sustainability
Through the summer 2024 Valley and Ridge workshop, I revised my course, Environmental Health (ENST 305), to better integrate sustainability concepts and their assessment within the environmental health context. As an upper-level elective in the Environmental Studies Department, this course encourages students to critically examine the environmental determinants of human health using a whole systems approach. To enhance this, I will incorporate new elements that more clearly connect environmental health with sustainability.
The Valley and Ridge workshop introduced various pedagogies and ideas that facilitated these adjustments. For example, I plan to incorporate place-based education through field trips to a dairy farm and a small-scale crop farm, both with implications on local sustainable food systems. Additionally, I will include collaborative partnerships by including guest lectures that deliberately integrate social and economic dimensions of sustainability. A resource extraction debate with a focus on environmental sustainability will also be adjusted to feature a stakeholder role-playing exercise that simulates real-world advocacy for sustainable solutions in lower-resource communities.
The class syllabus will also be updated to improve communication about the sustainability content of the course. During class sessions on the environmental health foundations, methods and paradigms, students will receive clear explanations of how sustainability topics are embedded in the core concepts of environmental health, along with explicit learning objectives related to sustainability. Guidance on engaging with and applying these concepts will also be provided. Furthermore, the coursework will incorporate more active learning strategies to foster higher-order thinking and skill development. The semester will culminate with a reflective class session on sustainable solutions in environmental health, featuring a small group discussion on the future of sustainability in the field.