Students in the class “Environments, justice and well-being” taught by adjunct professor Ana Munro are stepping outside of their classroom to collect data about students’ connection to environmental justice at Hamline. Munro gave her students creative liberties in creating their project to help them get engaged in the community and apply their learning in a way fit to them.
“I think getting involved in the community and learning in a way that you are actually contributing to the community and making a difference, so then students can see the real life impact of the learning they are doing. They are studying a course text and various essays in the class and then they can actually make meaning of what they are reading about by doing practical hands-on community organizing themselves,” Munro said.
Other students in this class are leading projects to help the community in other ways such as through a food and clothing drive, a clean up of the local area and creating more community spaces.
The goal of the survey is to amplify student voices. A member of the project, junior Tianna Frelix, believes these voices are important because students are the foundation of the university.
“[The survey] is a nice starting point just to hear from students, you know? Without the students, the institution really is nothing,” Frelix said.
The survey asks many questions about students’ personal relationships with the environment. Senior Eleora Chamberlain explained this helps develop an understanding of each person’s unique understanding and experiences with the outdoors and climate change.
“It’s so important to add in those questions where you come at it from a personal angle. Like, what are your experiences in the environment or important experiences in the environment? You kind of shape that connection for them when they might not see it right away,” Chamberlain said.
The process of creating the survey was highly collaborative, due in part to Munro’s active decision to take a back seat. While she was available for guidance, the largely student-driven survey allowed for students to ask the questions they truly wanted to know the answers to.
“I try to let students lead as much as possible without getting in their way or doing things for them. I really try to let them figure things out,” Munro said.
Environmental education and access to green spaces have historically been inaccessible to marginalized communities. Frelix hopes that the results of this survey will encourage more individuals to get outside and open green spaces to more people.
“Everyone should be going outside and learning about the things around them and how to sustain them,” Frelix said.
Although the survey has now closed its window for responses, this is just the first step towards more access to environmental education and involvement. The survey results show that not only are students deeply concerned about climate change, but they are ready to get involved both in and out of the classroom.
“We asked a couple of questions about how [participants] feel about the environmental education here at Hamline, and a lot of people think it’s lacking. They said it’s not great, there is a small distribution of education, [and they’ve] never talked about it or heard about it,” Frelix said.