Educators and Environmental Impact

U.S. EPA Community Change Grant Affecting Communities Through Educator Voices (ACTEV) to address pressing environmental issues

  The Affecting Communities Through Educator Voices (ACTEV) project, led by the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance (TECA) with Dr. Janey Camp, research professor in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Memphis as a key project partner, is among the latest projects funded by the U.S. EPA under the Community Change Grant Program. This project intends to enable educators to address pressing environmental issues within their classrooms and communities, ultimately creating a ripple effect of change throughout Tennessee by increasing awareness, knowledge, and technical skills. Over the course of the three years, the project team plans to train approximately 60 K12-level educators across the state in the cities of Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga through a series of workshops in a phased approach.     Key environmental issues that impact wellbeing and public health such as clean air, water quality, access to greenspace, etc. will be considered.  Teachers will learn about a range of issues that exist in their broader communities, how to collect data and perform spatial analysis using geospatial technologies.  This information will then be transformed into individual capstone projects where the participants will engage in visual story-telling and educational activities in their communities to reach multiple audiences including their students, the public, and community leaders.  The objective of the project is to develop both the technical skills of the teachers while also educating and empowering them to become local story-tellers to improve community health.  Project partners will play a critical role in the project by providing “boots-on-the-ground” insights, data sharing, and helping identify meaningful capstone project opportunities.   Camp is leading the University’s involvement, and she will help develop and facilitate the teacher training sessions for cohorts in each of the focus cities across the state in addition to assisting with coordination of project partners and supporting the educators’ capstone projects.     For more information about the project or to volunteer as a project partner, please reach out to Camp at jvcamp@memphis.edu.