What does community-engaged learning look like in STEM? From landslide research and environmental justice to health, conservation, and equity-focused education, faculty explore how CEL is reshaping STEM courses at Sewanee and beyond.
When imagining CEL courses, whether designing one entirely around CEL or including a CEL component in an existing course, many questions arise. A frequent concern is deciding how a STEM course aligns with the CEL description. Programs like Pre-health have consistently collaborated with local organizations such as the Beersheba Springs Medical Clinic, and increasingly, new and varied STEM courses are added every semester to the CEL offerings.
Eric Ezell (Environmental Studies) and Max Dahlquist (Geology) are just two examples of STEM courses built around the CEL model. Dahlquist’s course GEOL 229 Natural Hazards involved Sewanee students analyzing landslide hazards on the slopes around South Pittsburg, TN. Students conducted fieldwork on potentially unstable hillsides, searched newspaper archives for historical incidents, and taught South Pittsburg Elementary School students about landslide processes and hazards. Dahlquist’s course could also establish a model for using Split Creek Observatory to develop educational modules for students from elementary to high school, accessible on the Observatory's website. This offers local teachers the area the opportunity to do place-based case studies with their students.
Similarly, Ezell’s course design provides insights into the challenges and rewards of the CEL model.
-Eric, why choose a CEL course?
"I am co-chair of the Environment & Sustainability major, and some students compelled me to take stock of the role education has played (or hasn’t) in our global ecological crisis, as well as the formative role that access to environmental education has played in my own career (and life more broadly). They helped me realize that Sewanee is an ideal place to learn about environmental education. As I began developing the course – exploring the literature, engaging in discussions with colleagues, and reflecting on my own relationship with nature and how intersecting systems of privilege and power have molded it – it became clear that this course really needed to approach environmental education through the lens of justice and equity. It also became clear that to every possible extent I should connect students with the people who are already doing this work in our community: folks like Ned Murray and Mary Priestley at Friends of South Cumberland State Park, the founders of the Cumberland Forest School, Michael Short at St. Andrew’s, and Sewanee’s own John Benson of the SOP and Gracie Davis and Sara McIntyre of the OESS. They are the real experts."
- Did you have any initial concerns about designing a CEL course?
"My chief concerns were (1) developing the community partnerships in a constructive and mutually reciprocal way, and (2) all the uncertainty inherent in partnering students with community partners. My nightmare scenario was that a student group flaked on a community partner after all the effort and time it took for the partner to make space for the students and bring them on board in their work. But the students were fantastic, and they took their responsibility to their community partners extremely seriously, and I think all of that is attributable to how engaging and empowering the community-engaged learning framework inherently is."
-What challenge(s) did you encounter once your course started?
"The challenges mainly revolved around scheduling. Students and community partners alike are very busy, and some students are still learning the etiquette of communication, collaboration, punctuality, etc. But creating scenarios that demonstrate the necessity of these life skills is part of what makes CEL courses so valuable."
-What is one reward you got out of your CEL course?
"There are so many – it jumpstarted collaborations with community partners that will hopefully last years, it afforded me experiences with students that rank as some of the most meaningful and fun times I have ever had teaching, it reminded me of the critical importance of play and creativity in everyday life, not just for our students but for myself as well, and it reframed and re-galvanized my concept of why (and how) I do what I do as an environmental educator here at Sewanee."
- Do you have any recommendations for our colleagues considering designing a CEL course?
"I would encourage them to design their courses such that their success hinges 100% upon students showing up, engaging in unprecedented ways, and taking the lead. Then make sure the students understand that everything depends on them, and that they get to decide if the class succeeds or fails. This might feel scary, but when students rise to the occasion – and they will! – it becomes all the more powerful for everyone involved."
As Ezell highlights, students are a vital creative force behind the CEL course vision. Equally important is the need to redefine our role as educators. Ultimately, as these courses show, the benefits of meaningful teaching outweigh the challenges.
Cynthia Gray’s BIOL 180 Principles of Human Nutrition emphasizes the connection between diet and health within societal issues, including the role of diet in malnutrition, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, in collaboration with medical clinics in the Sewanee area.
Students in Jon Evans’s course BIO 222 Advanced Conservation Biology examined critically the role of science in public policy decision-making as it relates to the protection of biodiversity in the United States, such as on issues as deforestation, exotic species invasions, habitat fragmentation, endangered species protection, natural area management, and habitat restoration.
The “Agency Model” at Colorado State University combines STEM and Community Engagement by creating spaces to expand participation in STEM. Going beyond the classroom and functioning as place-based learning, this model sees STEM in everyday life and community settings, emphasizing cultural relevance and community-based research to empower underrepresented groups to recognize themselves as active participants in STEM.
