Tackling Real-World Problems: Impacts, Observations, and Challenges after Seven Years of the Environment Corps

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Caption: Stormwater Corps students learn to read development site plans with Instructors Bruce Hyde and Mike Dietz.

In the spring of 2016, faculty members from several departments at the University of Connecticut (UConn) met to flesh out a program that would harness the power of bright and motivated undergraduates to help address what our research had dubbed “the capacity gap,” or the inability of Connecticut communities to respond to environmental challenges due to lack of staff, access to information, or STEM expertise.^1,2,3 Our vision was straight out of the influential Kellogg Commission report (1999) on “The Engaged Institution” that called for institutions of higher learning to combine “teaching, research, and extension and service functions to become even more sympathetically and productively involved with their communities.⁴”

The resultant course, nicknamed the “Climate Corps,” debuted in 2017, funded by a grant from the Provost’s Office. In the next two years, it became the model for two courses similarly structured around a critical environmental issue: the “Brownfields Corps,” focused on redevelopment of contaminated sites, and the “Stormwater Corps,” focused on innovative solutions to the flooding and pollution caused by stormwater runoff. In 2019, a grant from the NSF IUSE program enabled the three courses to be placed under the umbrella of the Environment Corps (“E-Corps”), with enhanced coordination and program development, a research component focused on our STEM instructional methods, and the goal of integration of the pedagogical model into the fabric of UConn.⁵

Seven years and 41 semesters later, E-Corps has proven extremely successful with students and communities alike but is at something of a crossroads. We can claim multiple impacts and many lessons learned, but are still working toward the IUSE goal of institutional and community transformation.

The Program Model

E-Corps brings together three elements: classroom learning, service learning, and extension work with communities. While each of these components is familiar, it is in their focus, and how they’re combined, that makes the program unique.

The classes cover the basics of the focal environmental issue but devote considerable time to the impacts, challenges, responses, and strategies involved in dealing with the issue at the local level – something that is rarely explored in depth in other courses. The three courses share a core set of teaching practices called High Leverage Practices, developed by the instructors in collaboration with the Research Team from the School of Education, that represent important instructional priorities. These include: 1) eliciting students’ initial ideas, 2) exploring approaches to problems, and 3) developing informed solutions to address community environmental challenges.^6,7,8 All three E-Corps classes make use of active learning strategies such as in-class group projects, guest lectures, role-playing exercises, discussion, and field exercises (Figure 1).

Figure 1) Stormwater Corps students make their own pervious concrete in a class exercise. Click here to expand.

The classroom semester is followed by an optional practicum semester in which student teams use their newfound technical understanding and skills by working on projects with communities or local organizations. This is where students help to address the “capacity gap,” created in large part because Connecticut has no county government and each of the state’s 169 municipalities are largely on their own when it comes to facing environmental challenges.

Projects are based on community-identified needs and developed through discussions between course instructors and town staff. This is where the extension component comes in. Instructors for the Climate and Stormwater courses are Extension faculty with decades of experience working with communities, and the Brownfields instructors are faculty from Civil and Environmental Engineering with similar extensive community engagement experience.

Student projects range widely but many involve the use of technologies that are readily accessible to students but are frequently unfamiliar to, beyond the technical reach of, or too time-consuming for town staff. Often, student teams assemble and analyze information that becomes the foundation of local plans, actions, or funding proposals (Figure 2). Importantly, in employing their technical skills in the real world situations students develop workforce preparation skills related to communication, teamwork, project management, and accountability.

Figure 2) A townwide flood risk analysis, from a Climate Corps project report. Click here to expand.

How it’s Going

E-Corps is having an impact on our students. Through Spring semester 2025, E-Corps’ total enrollment stands at 708. Although our original concept was to target students from environmentally focused majors, the program has enrolled students from over 30 different majors, including non-STEM majors such as Political Science, Urban Studies, and Economics. Students are attracted by the real-world focus of the classes and the insight that it gives them into future careers. Post-semester feedback from student surveys are often in this vein:

“I was struggling to find an area of interest that I could legitimately see myself pursuing for an extended period of time at some point in the future and, likewise, actively making a difference while doing so… As a student in this class, for the first time ever I was able to envision myself in a position in which I would be working in this field in the future/post-graduation.”

Students typically present their findings to their local partners at the end of the semester, usually via an online meeting where partners provide feedback and share plans for using the information (Figure 3). At these meetings, we often witness the great sense of satisfaction when our students realize that they are making a difference in the real world. This sense of relevance and agency is invaluable and not something that many classes, or even service learning programs, provide.

Figure 3) A Stormwater Corps student reviews her green infrastructure recommendations at an online meeting with town officials. Click here to expand.

The effect is lasting. Horizon, Inc., external evaluator for the NSF project, conducted a 2022 survey to assess the “downstream” impact of E-Corps on students.⁹ The majority of the 70 UConn graduates who responded indicated that participating in E-Corps had increased their understanding of approaches used to address environmental issues (91%), related science content (86%), and relevant stakeholders (90%). They also overwhelmingly reported that E-Corps had helped them develop professional skills related to communication (97%), problem solving (97%), and collaboration (99%). Of the 37 survey respondents who indicated that they either have completed, are enrolled in, or plan to enroll in an environment-related graduate program, 50% said that participating in E-Corps had had a large impact on their decision.

For the instructional team, the program provides a way to expand our work with communities to a degree that would be impossible otherwise.¹⁰ Our practicum student teams have completed 211 projects with 134 unique local partners, including 70 of the 169 municipalities in Connecticut. To help gauge the impact of E-Corps on communities, Horizon conducted a second survey focusing on our local project contacts.¹¹ Their findings indicated that E-Corps projects have been used at the local level for a variety of purposes, including contributing to town plans, supporting town projects with data and research, and providing information for grant proposals. For instance, Brownfields Corps students have collected and organized information for town grant proposals that have resulted in over $16 million awarded to 20 towns.

Nearly all respondents said that working with E-Corps raised awareness of how partnering with the University can assist in solving problems in their community. As one town engineer put it:

“I think it’s great to have an E-Corps that gives students the opportunity to…have some real-life projects to work on…We [the town] have a benefit because we get to interact with [the E-Corps students] and hear about what they’re doing…And then we got a great report and some great ideas out of them with specific projects developed. So I think it’s a symbiotic relationship.”

Adopting and Supporting the E-Corps Model

Getting Started

One of our goals is to disseminate the pedagogical model. To assist colleagues interested in developing an adaptation of the model suited to their own interests and expertise, the Program Model section of our website (Figure 4) contains an array of resources, including:

project flow charts and decision trees;
classroom materials such as syllabi, in-class exercises, and assignments;
advice on practicum logistics, communication, and partner recruitment;
and links to publications, related projects, and student project descriptions.

Figure 4) The Program Model website has a range of resources for those interested in adapting the E-Corps model. Click here to expand.

Launching this type of program requires significant planning. We were fortunate in securing an internal university grant to do this and something similar, perhaps in the form of summer salary or a course buy-out, would be ideal to help get things started. At the implementation stage, we have found that a key to success is to fashion projects that are feasible for a student team to complete in a one-semester timeframe and yet result in useful, actionable products for the town; we have created a Project Decision Tree (Figure 5) to help colleagues choose which topics are likely to succeed.

Figure 5) Project Decision Tree, from the Program Model website. Click here to expand.

Remaining Challenges

Teaching in this mode requires a level of effort higher than the teaching of a more conventional course, making it a big ask for a faculty member given their other commitments. In addition, the degree of community engagement required of instructors means that there are only so many faculty who are positioned for ready adoption.

We feel that surmounting these barriers will likely require two things: more options for course configuration beyond the current two-semester model, and university-wide support structures for instructors taking on this type of challenge. During this last year of our NSF project, we have been working on both of these fronts. First, we are exploring alternative course models, including a one-semester model on local disaster preparedness being developed by the Department of Anthropology, and a summer “Drone Corps” course being tested by the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. Second, we are working on building internal support structures for faculty through a partnership with the university Office of Outreach and Engagement, including the idea of a staff member operating out of that office who would take on some of the communication and logistical burden of arranging practicum projects.

The Future

Pedagogical models like E-Corps can be intensive to implement, but our experience has shown that they have a major impact on students, provide real assistance to communities, and are extremely rewarding for faculty. In today’s uncertain academic environment, it seems more important than ever for students to graduate with a strong suite of workforce-related skills, and for institutions of higher learning to form mutually supportive bonds with the communities that they serve. E-Corps researchers and instructors will continue to expand and adapt our work, and welcome enquiries from colleagues who are interested in our approach to engagement.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of our colleagues on the E-Corps instruction, research, and integration teams, with special emphasis on our incredibly dedicated instructors. The work described in this blog is funded by the University of Connecticut and a grant from the National Science Foundation IUSE program (DUE-1915100). Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Author(s)

Chet Arnold is an Extension Educator Emeritus in the University of Connecticut Department of Extension. During his 34-year career at UConn he helped to create the Long Island Sound Study Public Outreach Program, the Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials (NEMO) Program, the National NEMO Network, the Natural Resources Conservation Academy, the UConn Environment Corps, and the Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), which he directed or co-directed since its creation in 2002. Chet’s programs have won the UConn Provost’s Career Award for Community Engagement three times. His research and outreach interests include land cover change, stormwater management, and STEM education, and he has been Principal or Co-Principal Investigator on over $25M of external grants. He has served on the Long Island Sound Study Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, the Connecticut Institute of Water Resources board, the UConn Environmental Policy Advisory Board, and the editorial board of the Watershed Science Bulletin. He is currently working part-time for CLEAR on several projects, which allows him to continue to have access to, and take credit for, the expertise of his younger and smarter colleagues.

Dave Dickson is an Extension Educator, the Director of the UConn Center for Land Use Education and Research (CLEAR), and the Co-Director of the CT NEMO program. CLEAR seeks to provide communities with tools, research, and support to make land use decisions that balance natural resource protection with community growth. This support focuses on these programmatic areas: water, climate resiliency, land use planning, mapping, sustainable food, and STEM education. As the Co-Director of the NEMO program at CLEAR, he works primary on municipal stormwater management issues, but also provides outreach and training focused on mobile mapping technologies as a member of CLEAR’s Geospatial Training Program and instructor in the Natural Resources Conservation Academy. He is the co-creator of the Rain Garden smartphone app and National LID Atlas. When pressed, or convenient, he will admit to being a lawyer by training, although not by practice or inclination. Dave has both a J.D. and a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Colorado, where he served as a notes and comments editor of the Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy. Dave is also a UCONN alum, with a BA in Anthropology and Political Science. His pre-CAHNR professional experience includes: coordinating environmental policy and education projects for the National Association of Local Government Environmental Professionals (NALGEP), representing municipalities before Congress and federal agencies, serving as a liaison between the University of Colorado and both the state legislature and Congress and coordinating an international project that sought to uncover unethical marketing practices in developing countries.

Dr. Campbell is the Department Head of Curriculum and Instruction and a Professor of Science Education in the Neag School of Education. His research focuses on cultivating imaginative and equitable representations of STEM activity. This is accomplished in formal science learning environments through partnering with pre-service and in-service science teachers and leaders to collaboratively focus on supporting student use of modeling (i.e., explanatory; complex systems modeling) as an anchoring epistemic practice to reason about events that happen in the natural world and solve local problems of community consequence. This work extends into informal learning environments through a focus on iterative design of informal learning spaces and equity- and justice-focused STEM education research. He is the outgoing Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Science Teacher Education and active in national and state-level systemic STEM improvement efforts.

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