SOIL AND WATER PB EDUCATION IN THE TIME OF COVID AND BLACK LIVES MATTER

This summer, in the midst of the COVID pandemic and Black lives matter we taught “Pb in the Environment”, an online, hands on learning course with students from the University of Vermont, Jackson State University, and local high schools. Our initial goal was teaching about the science, health, and environmental impacts of Pb in the environment. We added a strong social injustice component to the class.

The COVID pandemic and move to remote learning, provided a unique opportunity to diversity our e-classroom. We revised our plans and included students from Jackson State University, our HBCU partner in increasing diversity in the Earth Sciences. Enrollment for the course consisted in 9 UVM students from a variety of majors (e.g. religion, geology, microbiology), 4 JSU students from the Civil and Environmental Engineering program and 2 high school seniors.

To accommodate full online delivery, we designed the course in daily modules focused on specific aspects of Pb in the environment from basic chemistry to creating public service announcements. Each day, students were added to their personal web-based portfolio aimed at informing the public and providing a platform for information sharing and evaluation amongst class members. Part of the course involved soil and water sampling, shipping of samples, analysis at Vermont, and data interpretation.

Lessons learned from COVID-related delivery mode were that: a) synchronous meetings are difficult in multi-level, multi-cultural, transuniversity teaching; b) hands-on activities (sampling) have to be initiated early in the process due to a combination of varying shipping times and students time commitments; c) student web based portfolios (available here https://sites.google.com/view/leadintheenvironment2020/), are a good way to foster emulation and ensure consistency in quality within the class.

The inclusion of HBCU students coinciding with the national emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement provided grounds to focus the class on environmental injustice, a key component of Pb contamination. The course proved extremely successful in educating students to the danger and racial injustice of Pb contamination.