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Staff
Meeting Tomorrow's Challeges: Educatation & Professional Development
Meeting Today's Challenges: Community Outreach
Goal
Our Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP) serves a salient role toward the Center’s primary goals to reduce morbidity and mortality from environmental agents. The COEP is the primary link to diverse communities throughout the Baltimore metropolitan area to control environmental disease through research, education and clinical programs related to environmental exposures. The COEP Program consists of a multidisciplinary team of research, education and prevention specialists. Members of this group include researchers characterizing environmental carcinogen exposures in inner-city children, exposure to allergens and lead in the home and educational grants from NIEHS with Maryland Public Television to produce educational materials for middle school teachers and students in Maryland. Members of this group also work with the Baltimore City and Baltimore County Health Departments on issues ranging from indoor air quality to environmental tobacco smoke exposure.
COEP Staff Michael A. Trush, PhD
COEP Director and Professor, Environmental Health Sciences
(410) 955-2973 Pat Tracey
COEP Community Relations Coordinator
(443) 287-4686 Members: - Barbara Curbow, Associate Professor, Health Policy and Management
- Cecilia Davoli, Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
- Peyton Eggleston, Professor, Pediatrics
- Mark Farfel, Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Management
- George Jakab, Professor, Environmental Health Sciences
- Clifford Mitchell, Assistant Professor, Environmental Health Sciences
- Joanne Zurlo, Associate Scientist, Environmental Health Sciences
Collaborative Organizations: The following organizations identifies community agencies and groups with whom effective partnerships exist which enable the COEP and Center to accomplish its goals: Baltimore City Health Department; Baltimore City Police Department, Baltimore City Department of Education, Baltimore City Women's Commission, Maryland Cancer Consortium, Clergy United for Renewal in East Baltimore (CURE), the Julie Center, Dunbar Senior High School, Morgan State University, The Hispanic Apostolate, Centro De La Communidad, American Cancer Society - Maryland Division, Latrobe Housing Residents Council, Laborers' Health and Safety Fund of North America, JHU School of Medicine, JHU School of Nursing, and South Baltimore Community Environmental Partnership.
Meeting tomorrow’s challenges: Education K-12
To further the Center’s environmental health education initiatives, a collaborative partnership was established between the Center and Maryland Public Television (MPT) to develop educational materials for middle and secondary school students and teachers. The Center’s efforts toward environmental health education for children have resulted in three NIEHS-funded collaborative projects with MPT. The purpose of the first was to develop an educational video on environmental health issues for middle school children. This video series, EnviroMysteries: Explorations in Environmental Health Sciences, focused on water and its potential health hazards.
As further development of teacher programs in environmental health sciences, the MPT/NIEHS Center collaboration developed a comprehensive professional enrichment program entitled EnviroHealth Link. Designed for experienced middle school and pre-service teachers, EnviroHealth provides the knowledge and training to incorporate environmental health science topics and materials into their classroom curricula. This goal was accomplished through a three-step process: • Annual Video Teleconferences
• Three annual week-long Teacher Training Institutes
• Three year-long professional development courses The first Teacher Training Institute was held at the School during the summer of 1997. Since then, more than 200 Maryland teachers have participated in this annual program. Based on the teachers’ enthusiasm for the project a second teacher training workshop was developed, focusing on both cancer and environmental health. This program was entitled Biohealth Link and has been successfully presented to over 120 teachers in years 2000 and 2001. One important aspect of both the Envirohealth Link and the Biohealth was the development of lesson plans by Master teachers. All of the lesson plans developed are available to teachers on the MPT website. As a continuation of this partnership between MPT and the Center, we are now engaged in our third project funded through NIEHS. This seven-year project is entitled EnviroHealth Connections. Included in this new initiative is the development of additional video and online resources for middle school teachers and their students (an extensive revamped and upgraded EnviroHealth Link Web site, an EnviroMysteries II video entitled “Breaking the Mold”, and a teacher training video); more intensive teacher training programs in environmental health and technology, and cutting edge dissemination of educational resources (the extensive Web site with online lesson plans, teacher conferencing, online video clips) developed as part of this project. In addition to offering annual Summer Institutes on the Hopkins campus where scientists and teachers can work closely together, MPT and our Center are working with several schools to help build “Connections” cross curricular teams (Science, Social Studies, Math, Language Arts) to integrate environmental health science and quality technology resources into some of their lessons (incorporating cooperative learning, interdisciplinary learning, performance based instructional tasks, critical thinking and problem solving activities, and portfolio assessment). In return, teachers receive stipends and/or MSDE credit and are eligible to attend Summer Institutes at Hopkins and meet with Hopkins professors (both at the Summer Institute, during a 2 day colloquium during the winter, and through the services of a “Speakers’ Bureau” of JHU environmental health scientists) to help them digest environmental health content and brainstorm about new and engaging ways to present it to middle school students. The grant also provides computers, technology training, quality educational software for the teams, and some support for Internet connection, if needed. “Science has a rapidly changing knowledge base and increasing relevance today. Teachers need ongoing opportunities like this program to build their understanding and ability to communicate this information to students,” adds Mutryn. “Teacher participants of the program reported positive changes in student motivation and performance when they studied environmental health topics.” Professional Development
For the past several years, the Center has offered a graduate course on environmental health community outreach. The course attracts a wide-range of professionals, including current students from The Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. The seminar course introduces concepts of environmental justice and community outreach in environmental health emphasizing ongoing projects in the Baltimore region. Presentations are by researchers or project directors and their community partners as well as representatives from City and State government. Students are assessed on the basis of a paper demonstrating understanding of the course concepts by applying them to address a specific community environmental health problem. Through this course, students then have the opportunity to participate in ongoing community-based projects. “This course provides an important forum for students to interact and work with community organizations,” explains Michael Trush, PhD, COEP Director and Center Deputy Director. “Taking research to the community is a vital part of our Center’s mission.” Meeting today’s challenges: Community Outreach
Given the capability of Center members to conduct community-based research in diverse communities, the COEP translates research findings into clinical services, educational programs and public health policy. At the crux of the Center’s philosophy on community–based research is that education is an essential component of this process. The established partnerships with community agencies create the unique opportunity to respond to specific concerns identified by urban communities.
One recent example of our outreach efforts includes our partnership with the Citizens Planning and Housing Association (CPHA). Under the auspices of the CPHA’s Transportation Committee, a Clean Fuel Bases group was formed to examine issues concerning diesel exhaust in buses. Dr. Trush was brought in as an academic partner of this educational and fact-finding group which culminated in a report booklet issued by CPHA in December 2002. The intent of this project and report was to influence the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) to examine it policies with regard to the type of fuel used and type of buses purchased in the future. A Baltimore Sun OpEd article authored by Groopman and Trush drew attention to this report. Plans for the future of this collaboration include holding forums and meetings with community groups to inform them about this issue and to elicit grassroots in support of MTA altering their policies. A major concern is the location of bus storage depots in Baltimore neighborhoods. As an extension of this endeavor, Trush and Timothy Buckley, PhD, participated in a recent project to assess bus emissions at a bus stop located in downtown Baltimore. This continuing partnership has brought together citizens, businesses, and scientists to assess conditions in the local environment and build consensus around action plans to address issues of air quality and transportation.
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