Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Education on Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle – A Non-Traditional University takes the Local Global
EPA Grant Number: SU833932Title: Education on Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle – A Non-Traditional University takes the Local Global
Investigators: Fu, Sabrina S. , Freeman, Arlaine
Institution: University of Maryland - University College
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: August 15, 2008 through August 14, 2009
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2008) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Chemical Safety , P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
These students contributed to this project: Arlaine Freeman, Alissa McDonnell Ellison, Terri Shelton, Mary Beth Tibbs, Jeremy Broadhead, Carrissa, Acosta, Lasalle Easter, Terra Virsilas, and Richard Schoenwiesner; Business Administration, Global Business & Public Policy, Environmental Management, and Emergency Management.
The purpose of UMUC’s website “Pathways to the Three R’s” is to educate UMUC students and the public in an online community setting. The educational materials provide individuals with reasons to why they need change, and help guide them toward fundamental change.
Specifically, the objectives are:
- Provide education through the “Individuals, Society, and Sustainability” course, which was developed specifically to support the website
- Online classroom sharing of what was learned in the projects, and through the “individual, society, and environmental sustainability” journal. This journal is an online open journal where students come in whenever they like during the semester to share connections they made between individuals, society, and environmental sustainability. We then take what has been learned in the classroom and post it on the website
- Create projects that students share with the public through our “Pathways to the Three R’s” website: http://www.umuc.edu/gogreen/
- Create discussions forums for students to share ideas with the public
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
The direct accomplishments/outputs of Phase I are:
- Implementation of “Individuals, Society, and Sustainability” course where UMUC students from all over the world share what they see locally
- Sharing of reduce and reuse resources from 39 counties in 12 states and the District of Columbia, encompassing well over 100 zip codes
- Partnerships with earth911 and Dr. Robert Beauchamp
- Five student projects published on the website, including three multimedia presentations
- Six discussion forums begun with four of them led by students
- Two ideas and discussions of “solutions that beget solutions” by UMUC students
- Three interactive quizzes: Carbon Footprint, Water Cycle, and Watershed
- Student-led website where the results of the activities above are published
- The continued use of the website by both UMUC students and the public, with increasing use by the general public, as shown by the data presented below
The growing and continued use of the website (outcome) is demonstrated by the following data:
- For the first few days after the website went live, the website did not appear anywhere on a Google search for “pathways to reduce, reuse, recycle.” As of March 11, 2009, a Google search of “pathways to reduce, reuse, recycle” (search words not in quotes) identifies the website as the first of 14,400 websites that matched this search.
- As of March 11, 2009, a Yahoo search of “pathways to reduce, reuse, recycle” (search words not in quotes) identifies the website as the first of 163,000 websites that matched this search.
- The number of weekly visits increased from 200 to 350 during the first six weeks that the website was available, with the number of visits increasing overall with time.
- The percentage of visitors from http:www.google.com/ has increased from zero to 25% in a period of six weeks, with an additional 10% of users linking from other search engines such as Google Canada, Google United Kingdom, and Google Pilipinas.
- The website consistently has approximately 70% of its visitors from within the U.S., and the remaining from outside the U.S. The international users come from 21 different countries and five different continents.
Conclusions:
This project was a synthesis of an array of existing tools and knowledge; best practices of online teaching, effective communication skills, web design principles, scientific knowledge of how we impact our environment, studies on how human behavior changes, and ideas on sustainable lifestyles. The innovative approach UMUC took was to mine these different areas to accomplish the task. Too often in our society we break things down into little boxes we call subjects, and fail to connect them. The approach taken in this grant is to explore whatever it is logical to explore – from ideas on the “new literacy” to website evaluations to cross-cultural comparisons on recycling. This approach has invigorated students to creatively think and take ownership of the website. Students read, discussed, and synthesized everything from web design to behavioral change to sustainability issues. They compiled great resources on the web for everyone to use (please see http://www.umuc.edu/gogreen/resources/), and worked on projects for the website.
Students and faculty experienced a synthesis of knowledge, which has begun to bring paradigm shifts and change. And it is paradigm shifts and change that we need in order to move toward a more sustainable society.
In conclusion, we have seen the need to reexamine our effect on our environment through the use of education and discussions. We have used research from both the natural and social sciences to educate ourselves and the general public on the topic of materials and water use, and implemented a number of interactive media for the education of these topics. The website, in its sixth week, shows an ever increasing use by the general public, as demonstrated by the fact that up to 25% of our website users are now linked from google.com, and another 10% from other search engines.
Proposed Phase II Objectives and Strategies:
With such a strong response to the website, we plan to continue the same approach for Phase II grant work, with the implementation of the following additions to the website:
- Provide more educational resources in a multimedia format, such as an interactive resources on the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous cycles, including how humans affect them
- Sharing of leadership materials for users to be trained as agents of change in their community (provided by Dr. Susan Robinson)
- Discussions on important issues related to sustainability – from the ramifications of each technology use to the need to find solutions that beget solutions, while keeping the need for reduce, reuse, and recycle in mind
- The formal development of the “Individuals, Society, and Environmental Sustainability” online course to include formal learning/teaching modules and more resources
- This course will be the main conduit for more creative ideas from students, which will then be implemented on the website with technical support from UMUC’s Marketing and Communications team and the partnership of Dr. David Taylor of Peak Writing, LLC.
- Student from this course will continue to explore local resources in the U.S. and around the world because online students at UMUC represent 22 countries worldwide (UMUC, 2009). In addition, the site visit data consistently indicates that approximately 30% of our users are from outside the U.S.
- Students will be provided opportunities to participate in a variety of projects such as assuming the lead role in linking us together by commonality of what we all need physically, psychologically, and spiritually with stories called “A Sense of Place.” We all need to have a sense of belonging to a time and place, and to encourage this sense of belonging, we will have a section called “Share Your Stories” where we discuss our favorite places, the stories behind them, and how we can help to conserve these places.
- Another type of project students in the “Individuals, Society, and Environmental Sustainability” course will have an opportunity to become involved in focuses on social encouragements and community building of the website. Examples of articles submitted by websites users are:
- Recyclers in the News” to document and share relevant world-wide articles about recyclers
- Recycler Hall of Fame to post links to articles or ‘honor’ an individual who is doing a great job with reduce-reuse-recycle
- The implementation of new quizzes relevant to environmental sustainability. At the minimum, we will implement quizzes on the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate cycles, consistent with the new multimedia, interactive sources on the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate cycles to be implemented in Phase II. The data from the previous three quizzes will be used to help write even more appropriate quiz questions that are in alignment with the content and them of the website.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 3 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Pathways to Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, material use, water use,Relevant Websites:
Pathways to the Three R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. (2009). Think Globally, Act locally: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Retrieved March 9, 2009, from http://www.umuc.edu/gogreen/
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.