Speaker: UConn Environmental Corps
Title: UConn Environment Corps: real world experience for undergrads, real assistance for Connecticut communities
Abstract:
The UConn Environment Corps (E-Corps) is a multi-college effort that began in 2017 with an Academic Plan seed grant from the Office of the Provost. E-Corps combines classroom instruction, service learning, and Extension outreach in a new model originally targeting Environmental Studies, Environmental Sciences, and Environmental Engineering majors. The three current E-Corps courses each focus on the local impacts of, and responses to, pressing environmental issues: climate resilience and adaptation, brownfields redevelopment, and stormwater management. A classroom semester emphasizing active learning is followed by a practicum semester where student teams conduct projects for towns and other partners recruited through ongoing Extension (or Extension-like) outreach programs. To date, E-Corps courses have enrolled about 450 students, and student teams have completed over 100 community projects. Our presentation will include an overview of the program and some details about the instructional practices and community work of each of the three courses. In addition, we’ll briefly discuss the results of a study of former E-Corps students who have since graduated. We’ll finish with a discussion of future plans for the program and whether a Geography-based E-Corps course might be developed.
Date/Time/Location:
Friday, October 7th | 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM | AUST 445
For more information, contact: Katie Lamb at katie.lamb@uconn.edu