Environmental and Economic Injustice |
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Page 1 of 3 Laura Stivers, Dominican University of California
Seeing is BelievingMiles of torn-up mountain, dump trucks with car-sized wheels, coal dust-covered windowsills, torrential mudslides, and intimidation from coal companies — we experience the devastation of Kayford Mountain in West Virginia as we participate in a walking prayer vigil/protest. Wanting to learn more about the environmental and economic injustices happening within a few hours of where I live and seeking a way to engage students on a deeper level in my “Environmental Philosophy and Ethics” course at Pfeiffer University, I contacted groups organizing against mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining. Put in contact with a former Presbyterian pastor-turned-organizer and the environmental nonprofit organization Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW), I planned a three-day service-learning trip for my students (and my children).
While I had hoped to make this service trip a mandatory part of my course, a high number of students with demanding sports schedules and work hours made such a requirement unrealistic. Thus, apart from a section on environmental racism and classism, I did not take class time to prepare students for the trip. After the trip, however, the students who went presented a slide show and reflection on their experiences both in chapel and at a local church. In our class they also made a presentation during the ethics section on energy. And the following semester several of them even helped me design a workshop on environmental racism for our university’s Bonner Scholars (a service-based scholarship program). Even more exciting, several of the students met to start a campus environmental group. While not all of the students in my course went on this educational trip, all of them did participate in service. Since there are no environmental organizations in the vicinity of our university — located in rural North Carolina — for sustained service over the semester, I chose instead to have my students, in three separate groups, develop creative workshops for students in the charter high school on our campus. My students used engaged pedagogy to teach an ecological perspective in relation to food, energy use, and waste. For the sake of space, I will reflect on the West Virginia service/educational experience, although I think a mix of engaged learning pedagogies in a course is beneficial. |