The PAEP is a small group 2 part semester-long COMMON ASSIGNMENT project.
Thursday, October 3: Deadline for project selection.
Thursday, October 17: Deadline for site visit.
Thursday, November 7: Deadline for PAEP poster completion.
Thursday, December 5: Deadline for FINAL reflection.
Proactive approaches to the environment project (PAEP)
Humans past and present have used science to understand, policy and technology to manage, and ethics to value the environment in which they live. Merging these and other tools together, society has developed ways to work with, harvest from, and/or protect itself against nature in order to live within the environment. The common assignment for the semester will allow you to explore these proactive approaches through research and experiential learning. There are many opportunities for experiential learning in the greater Burlington area (a list will be provided if you need ideas). Your group can learn about human approaches to agriculture, sustainable development, climate change, energy, forestry, outdoor recreation, waste and recycling, water, wildlife, and many more topics. The group will make contact with an individual in its field of interest and request a site visit in order to experience a particular approach to the environment. In addition to site visits, experiential learning opportunities may include interviews, guided outdoor recreation, volunteer work, education programs, public hearings, and the like. Initial research will be required in order to gain foundational knowledge of your subject, so that you can make the most of your experience. For this project you will present your findings with: (1) a group professional poster and (2) an individual reflective analysis.
Part 1 – The group professional poster
The first deliverable for the common assignment is the creation and presentation of a group professional poster. The poster contains four main components that require the group to: (1) explore the historical background of the environmental issue that preceded the science and/or policy developments, (2) explain the science and/or technology of the environmental subject, (3) investigate the policies used to manage and regulate the subject, and (4) identify the ethical frameworks used in making these policy and management decisions.
For example, if your group chose to visit the Burlington wastewater treatment facility for its project, it could address the four components in the following way:
1. Background/History: Intact ecosystems offer the benefit of the water purification services, so there was historically less need for municipal wastewater treatment – dilution was the solution to pollution. As human population increased, and with it agricultural and industrial water pollution, the construction of wastewater treatment facilities was funded under The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. Major amendments to this Act in the 1970s were motivated by public outrage over specific events, including large fish kills, oil spills, and the burning of some rivers as a result of heavy contamination, as well as the generally deteriorated state of the nation’s waterways.
2. Science/Technology: Explain the process of wastewater pretreatment (screening/filtration), primary treatment (sedimentation/clarification), secondary treatment (aeration/aerobic digestion), disinfection (with ozone, UV light, and/or disinfecting chemicals), and sludge treatment (anaerobic digestion). Wastewater treatment plants are designed to mimic the process of water purification in natural ecosystems and comparisons with artificial treatment systems should be explained.
3. Policy: Wastewater treatment facilities are regulated as a point-source of pollution under the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) under the Clean Water Act at the federal level and total maximum daily load (TMDL) permits at the state level. Each of these permits allows the facility to discharge a certain amount of various pollutants within allowable limits.
4. Ethics: Some ethical implications of wastewater treatment pertain to residual chemicals and excess nutrients that enter Lake Champlain, as well as the inability to remove certain pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals. Questions this section could speak to are: What level of risk are we willing to assume in terms of the impact wastewater effluent has on aquatic ecosystems, recreation, and drinking water? What are the ethical implications of the risk/benefit cost-analysis of tertiary treatment? Which ethical frameworks are applied in the local and national policies that regulate wastewater treatment?
The poster should follow a standard professional format, but will have history, science, policy, and ethics as its defining elements. Professional posters require you to creatively and concisely convey technical material, so your poster’s visual appeal and group’s practiced talking points are both essential. The format for poster presentations will be similar to that of a professional poster session – that is, some groups stand with their poster and answer questions, summarize information, and talk about their experience, while students who are not presenting visit posters as audience members. This format will require you to have both broad and detailed knowledge of your subject and understand it to the extent that you can clearly articulate each of the four components of the project, intelligently answer a variety of questions, and concisely summarize what your group has learned from the experience.
The group poster will be submitted to ePort, but does not require any assessment in ePort.
Guidance for creating professional posters can be found at:
Stanford University poster design guidelines and resources for undergraduate research: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/cgibin/drupal_ual/OO_research_opps_SURPSResources.html
University of North Carolina Graduate School student resources: http://gradschool.unc.edu/student/postertips.html
Part 2 – The individual reflective analysis
The second deliverable for the common assignment is an individual reflective analysis which serves as an extended written narrative of the summarized information on the poster. This assignment will allow you to reflect on your experiential learning and address how your experience may have challenged, informed, or enriched your views. The written analysis will provide the unabridged version the four components of the poster: (1) history, (2) science / technology, (3) policy, and (4) ethics of the environmental subject, and in addition, require you to: (5) evaluate the ethical frameworks used in making policy and management decisions (note, this differs from simply identifying the applied ethical frameworks, which is what you are asked to do as a group for the poster), and (6) reflect upon your learning through each phase of the project from initial research to the culminating poster session. The format of this assignment is neither a standard research paper, nor a purely reflective essay; rather, it should merge the two and offer both critical analysis of and thoughtful reflection on the chosen topic.
Your individual reflective analysis should be approximately 2000 words double-spaced, and include a works cited page and in-text citations in proper MLA format. This analysis will be submitted to ePort and assessed as the common assignment for the course.
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