|
Project
Elements
Community
epidemiological survey on asthma & air pollution:
The project's young participants will interview friends and
family about the impact of asthma in their lives and the lives
of those close to them. They will then use the information
they gain in those informal interviews to develop a community
survey protocol in collaboration with an experienced public
health researcher. Students will administer the community
survey to members of the Downs Memorial congregation and the
surrounding community, and to residents of the neighborhoods
surrounding McClymonds High School in West Oakland and other
participating schools. The survey will investigate incidence
and severity of asthma in the households of persons interviewed,
household access to treatment for asthma and health care in
general, types of treatment regimens prescribed for any asthma
sufferers in the household and potential barriers, if any
exist, to following that regimen, as well as exposure to air
pollutants known to cause or exacerbate asthma.
Air
sampling & monitoring: Students will augment the information
developed in their survey by sampling the air inside and their
schools and churches and at various locations in the surrounding
community, using a simple air sample collection apparatus,
and will review the laboratory analysis of those samples so
that they can better understand how pollution is measured
in their community. If possible, students will also measure
actual diesel pollution in the neighborhoods. Because diesel-monitoring
systems are quite costly we are currently looking for a public
health program or non-profit organization willing to lend
equipment to the project.
Summarizing
research findings: After several weeks of interviews,
assisted by the researcher, the young people will analyze
the information they collect, and summarize their findings.
Mapping
the agency landscape - how public agencies can affect change:
After the survey is completed, the project will help our young
people learn how different public and private agencies interact
to affect a problem. Students will meet with representatives
of different non-profit and governmental agencies that work
on air pollution and asthma. They will learn about sources
of air pollution in their communities, who controls those
sources, and who has the authority to enforce existing laws
and regulations aimed at reducing pollution or to create new
laws and regulations.
Advocating
solutions: Working in collaboration with project staff,
students will develop recommendations for reducing the air
pollution that triggers asthma in their communities, and for
addressing other issues that they have identified in the survey
process. Students will prepare a report including those recommendations
along with the information they develop through the community
survey. Students will present their report at a community
forum, and in meetings with elected officials and agency staff.
Project staff will seek out opportunities for students to
collaborate with other community groups working to address
asthma and air pollution, including engaging students in activities
such as testifying at public hearings or writing letters supporting
action proposals.
Leadership training & team building: To help
students learn how to work together more effectively, and
to provide a broad systems ecology context for their environmental
justice work, students will participate in leadership training
and team building programs at the Headlands Institute in Marin
Headlands National Park and at the Yosemite Institute in Yosemite
National Park. These
programs are designed to take young people out of their everyday
environment and encourage them to move beyond their ordinary
comfort zones. Each program encourages young people to work
with their team members to accomplish goals, and to over-come
anxieties in order to try new and challenging activities.
These
trips are designed to be adventures that reinforce what the
youth learn throughout the project. For many of the project's
young participants, this will be their first experience of
the natural world outside the city. These field-based environmental
education programs are designed to help students understand
the relationship between the urban environment and the natural
environment and to help students understand environmental
health as an aspect of systems ecology. In addition to team
building and leadership training, students will receive hands-on
training about human impacts on ecological systems through
Headlands Institute's field science program at Marin Headlands
National Park. and will study the impact of air pollution
on natural landscapes, forests, and wildlife during the Yosemite
Institute's multi-day outdoor education program
Non-partisan
voter registration & outreach - a core component of civic
engagement: Students will conduct non-partisan voter
registration and outreach, registering members of their church
congregations at voter registration Sundays, going door-to-door
to register voters in the neighborhoods surrounding their
schools and churches, and registering voters at high traffic
locations in Oakland and Berkeley such as downtown transit-hubs,
DMV centers, flea markets, and grocery stores and shopping
centers that serve large numbers of low-income customers.
Understanding
why voting matters: In addition to participation in
non-partisan voter registration efforts, during this part
of the project students will be encouraged to consider how
voting could impact the issues they have been working on.
Students will draft questions on their issues, posing those
questions to candidates at non-partisan public forums or in
letters. Staff also will work with students to analyze the
possible impact on air pollution and asthma of any relevant
ballot proposals.
Increasing
participation among registered voters: After registration
closes, project participants will phone the voters registered
to encourage them to vote, and explain the mechanics of voting
-- whether in person at their designated polling places or
by mail using an absentee ballot. Project participants also
will mail or hand-deliver reminder cards with precinct locations,
if funding is available.
Classroom
curriculum on the civics of air pollution and asthma:
The project is working with the Law Academy at McClymonds
High School in West Oakland to develop an environmental health
civic engagement curriculum for use in the classroom, focusing
on the link between air pollution and asthma, an environmental
health problem with serious ramifications for everyone in
Alameda County, and especially for low income communities
and communities of color that are most impacted by diesel
pollution from freeways, port facilities, large postal centers,
such as the one in West Oakland, and industrial facilities
served by large numbers of trucks.
Efforts
to enlist other schools in the project are also underway,
and will continue throughout the life of the project. Project
staff is contacting educators at schools through out the East
Bay, with special emphasis on schools that serve low-income
East Bay communities, to find teachers who are interested
in using part or all of the asthma/air-pollution curriculum
in their classes, and interested in encouraging their students
to participate in voter outreach as a community service project
before the 2006 election. |
