The Kanawha Environmental Education Project (KEEP), is a year-long training for Ohio University faculty that integrates concepts of environmental sustainability into curriculum improving the environmental literacy of students. After a successful pilot year the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded an Ohio Environmental Education Fund grant to the project.
The Kanawha Project stemmed from a polling of 700 Ohio University undergraduate students of which a majority believed they had a personal responsibility to help improve the environment, yet felt they lacked enough fundamental knowledge of environmental issues to implement changes. Voinovich School staff member and Environmental Studies director Dr. Michele Morrone developed the project in response to the poll and teamed with Dr. Nancy Manring, a political science professor, and through an Ohio University 1804 grant funding was secured to begin faculty education on environmental issues.
Twenty professors, selected from among 50 applicants, were selected from a broad range of studies such as history, marketing and art. The selected professors participated in an intensive workshop, attended monthly meetings and field trips where they discussed assigned readings and brainstormed methods of incorporating the new content into coursework. All faculty participants were asked to revise one syllabus to integrate environmental issues into their class.
During the 2008-2009 academic year another 20 professors will be trained—ten from the Athens campus and two professors from five regional campuses in Chillicothe, Ironton, Lancaster, St. Clairsville and Zanesville. The trainings and workshops will focus on regional concerns, and upon project completion, faculty will be expected to teach Kanawha concepts in their own departments and regional campuses. Plans further in the future include expanding to include 20 colleges and universities in the state of Ohio, creating a sustainability educators network throughout the state.
>> Visit the Kanawha Project Web site
>> Visit the Environmental Studies Web site