The gateway course for the certificate is a service-learning class designed to engage students with sustainability on a personal, campus, and global scale. Sustainability Theory & Practice introduces seminal readings and core concepts while developing skill sets through investigative assignments and group projects. For the first time, students in the certificate program are exposed to the idea of sustainability as the intersection between the environmental, economic, and social spheres of life.

Theoretical explorations in this class included:

  • David Orr, “Ecological Literacy”
  • Brundtland, “Our Common Future”
  • Hardin, “Tragedy of the Commons”

Skills developed:

  • Directed observation
  • Structured and unstructured interviews
  • Program benchmarking
  • Social science coding
  • Annotated bibliographies and literature reviews

In addition to the readings and assignments this class also facilitated discussions on concepts such as personal and corporate responsibility, the intersection of religion and sustainability, and how our campus engages with sustainable goals.

There were three mandatory course field trips: working a shift at the Duke Campus Farm, volunteering to direct trash flow at a waste-free football game, and to either participate in a bioblitz, walk the Sheppard Nature Trail, or take the Duke Campus Sustainability Walk.

The most important component of the class is the service-learning, client-based projects we completed in teams. My group’s client was the Duke Forest and we sought to advance wildlife management through citizen science.

Research Question: How can Duke Forest use current citizen science programs and volunteer input to design a feasible and useful herpetofauna-monitoring citizen science program?

Our goal was to create a citizen science herpetology program in collaboration with Sarah Childs, Director of the Duke Forest. After connecting with our client and other campus experts, we benchmarked existing herpetology citizen science programs in the surrounding area and throughout the US. The purpose of benchmarking was to provide baseline information about existing herpetofauna citizen science programs that Duke Forest can use to guide their own program design. We collected data on eleven online herpetofauna citizen science programs. We thematically coded the information we gathered into categories (participant training, data collection, sharing data, and volunteer relationships) and included subcategories based on aspects citizen science program designers should consider. We then summarized the results of the benchmarking exercise to show common characteristics of  herpetofauna programs and the kinds of elements the Duke Forest may want to consider building into their own program.

The second step — after becoming certified to perform human subject research — was to create a survey to gather information about volunteer interest. It was a 20 question Qualtrics survey with conditional logic that was posted on the Duke Forest Facebook and sent to the existing volunteer base through the Duke Forest listserv. We gathered 71 responses, analyzed trends using Excel, and prepared infographics and summary statistics for our client. Interesting findings included potential volunteer feedback about preferred training time, preferred frequency of participation, best data collection methods, and motivations for joining the proposed program.

Finally, we presented the benchmarking data, survey results, and interviews with Dr. Nicolette Cagle and Sara Childs to the whole Duke Forest Management team. This included a presentation, a four-page brief, and an informative video. Thanks to our recommendations, the Duke Forest is now in its third year of offering a “herp” citizen science program! This year, the program received a tidal wave of interest reached maximum volunteer capacity before the registration window closed!

Check out our brief and video here!

Course: ENV 245

Instructors: Dr. Charlotte Clark and Ms. Tavey Capps

2017 Fall Syllabus ENV245

Thus began my interest in citizen involvement in environmental science and management. I found this project to be a great challenge to complete thoroughly from start to finish, and our final product made me proud of our hard work. Benchmarking, surveying, interviewing, creating project briefs, producing a video, and presenting to a client are all skills that I’ve used in subsequent classes and experiences, including my capstone project…