Curriculum practices green service learning
New green service-learning projects meant to bring awareness of environmental issues to students and to the community have been incorporated within VCU’s curriculum.
New green service-learning projects meant to bring awareness of environmental issues to students and to the community have been incorporated within VCU’s curriculum.
VCU will be featured in a special edition manuscript to be published in the Metropolitan Universities Journal promoting issues that urban universities are addressing on-campus and in curriculums to go green.
Lynn Pelco holds a doctorate in education and is the service-learning program director for the VCU Division of Community Engagement. She said she finds out what the community needs and then helps put faculty in touch with the community.
“It is the service-learning approach applied to sustainability issues,” Pelco said.
Service learning merges in-class learning with community service by going out of the classroom and assisting the local community with needed services.
“The most exciting part is that students are making a difference in the community,” Pelco said. “It brings learning to life.”
In 2001, students enrolled in Geography 102: Introduction to human geography began an urban-creek cleanup in which students go out and participate in cleaning up Reedy Creek. Miles J. Jones Elementary School faces Reedy Creek and VCU students include the elementary students in the cleanup process, Pelco said.
“Reedy Creek is located in the Southside of Richmond,” VCU student Wes Smith said in a video highlighting the creek cleanup. “It’s a major problem because it’s a watershed from James River.”
According to the VCU Year of the Environment Web site, the geography students also engage in human-environment interaction by working with elementary students to teach the children about wetland conservation.
In addition, college students make recycled-product art projects with the elementary students, the Web site states.
Students enrolled in Religious Studies 340 and International Studies 341: Global ethics and the world’s religions engage interrelationships between global ethical issues and environmental sustainability, the Web site states. The religion class’ green service-learning projects include working in urban youth gardening projects.
These green service-learning projects bring local connections to VCU students, which Pelco said brings opportunities for jobs.
