Waskowitz Environmental Leadership & Service School Collaboration

Description: In my Complex Urban Systems course, we partnered with high school students at Waskowitz Environmental Leadership & Service School to learn about environmental issues and learn ways to combat them.  

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Analysis: I was charged to work with six high school students that range in age. Our topic was storm water pollution. The students, with my help, researched storm water pollution in order to give a presentation at my university on their findings with ways to solve the issues. They also had to find out what entity they could reach out to if they wanted to report problems with storm water pollution and if they wanted to be civically engaged. 

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Reflection: This was my favorite activity in grad school. I like working with older students from backgrounds that may have had challenges, as this was me in high school. I was an "F" student my first quarter of high school and was on route to flunk out. I think having overcome these challenges helps me relate to these students and is the reason I like giving back aiding them. I also like that the students were of color and a lot of them opened up to me about some of their challenges. It was great to see them engaged in the activity, and I would have liked more interaction with them. 

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Their presentation went great, and I think they have more information about storm water pollution than they had before with action steps on how to engage if they had concerns about storm water pollution. 

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I think exposure is the first step and that planting a seed is the beginning step of future impact. 

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