Texas A&M University
AC-5: Immersive Experience

Geography 380, Workshop in Environmental Studies, is designed to allow students to immerse themselves in real issues of sustainability and the environment using an experiential learning approach. Class size is limited to 18 undergraduates. Each semester the class explores a specific theme related to sustainability and students work in groups to tackle projects centered around that theme. All projects require hands-on active fieldwork that engages the local community in some manner.

Recent topics have included:
• Urban sustainability with a focus on developing alternative future scenarios as storylines that explore the challenges and opportunities faced by major urban areas around the world (Fall 2019)
• Ecosystem services, valuation systems, and conservation strategies that pertain to climate change mitigation and carbon emission reduction (Spring 2019)
• Analysis of environmental hazards with respect to human use of the land. This includes geologic hazards and problems caused by floods and meteorological conditions. Emphasis will be placed on understanding both the human dimensions (risk, disaster mitigation, sustainability, reconstruction, etc.) and the geophysical characteristics (wind speed, surge characteristics, liquefication, etc.) of environmental hazards. (Fall 2020)
• Role of urban trees, parks, gardens, and natural areas in promoting sustainability, climate resilience, and environmental justice. (Spring 2020 and Spring 2021)
• The complex interaction between the cryosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere, Global warming and cryosphere, the impact of cryospheric changes on humans, an equitable tree planting program, optimal species mix for roadside vegetation buffer for air pollution mitigation, and a program to assess mental health benefits of greenspace. (Spring 2022)

The first month of the course, students read around key issues centered on the current course theme. For example, during the waste management course, students developed a deeper understanding of the broader social context of waste management by reading about the history of waste, discussing issues surrounding various waste management practices (including concerns of environmental justice), and visiting with local community stakeholders to better understand what happens at the landfill and the local recycling facility. Using the knowledge gained in the first few weeks, students then tackled waste management on campus by conducting waste audits of various campus waste streams. The ultimate goal of the varied campus audits was to provide the university with specific waste management and waste minimization guidance based on what was being thrown out, and how it was arriving to waste bins. The two semesters culminated with a white paper summarizing that guidance based on students’ research. This white paper was presented to campus waste management stakeholders. This course allows students to interact with a broad range of local stakeholders from within academia and within the local community, on issues of sustainability that affect us all. Geography 380 at Texas A&M University promotes professionalism and a deep understanding of sustainability issues from multiple perspectives, through immersion experience in research.

Multiple professors teach Geography 380 and have slight variations on the description above. For example, the course consists of two primary components: 1 – an introduction to contemporary urbanization, urban sustainability, and scenario building/visioning literature, and 2 – the design, execution and delivery of scenarios on urban futures. The first component will be primarily in seminar format with a collection of short lectures, multi-media, and discussions of assigned readings. The second component of the course will be devoted to the design, execution, presentation, and reporting of group research projects. Students will work in groups of three or four to develop a set of alternative future scenarios that explore the challenges and opportunities faced by major urban areas around the world.

The Texas Target Communities Program (TTCP) at Texas A&M provides training, tools, and assistance necessary to facilitate the transformation of communities from high risk/low opportunity to equitable, resilient, and adaptive by mitigating threats to the economy, environment, and culture. TTCP, a part of the Public Partnership and outreach office of the Provost, works with at least 8 courses per semester to immerse students in community needs related to sustainability and resilience. Going forward, TTCP plans to include more courses on campus as a way to meet the needs of under-served Texans.

Additional url: http://ttc.arch.tamu.edu/