Utilization of the Maryland Environmental Justice Screening Tool: A Bladensburg, Maryland Case Study

In the search for sustainable development, in which the ecological footprint is carefully considered by consumers and companies, teachers play an important role within a social and economic framework. This role relates to aspects of social responsibility. It should involve knowledge about education for responsible consumption in order to care for the environment both individually and socially. Considering this, the aim of this study is to find out whether there are differences in the level of awareness and the habits of future teachers of Early Childhood and Primary Education regarding sustainable social responsibility. A non-probabilistic sample of 30 Early Childhood Education degree students and 22 Primary Education degree students was used. Semi-structured interviews and an inductive process were conducted to examine the importance of Sustainable Development in society, the relevance of Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development (individual versus corporate), the attitudes and habits relative to Sustainable Development and the education on Sustainable Development in schools: knowledge, attitudes, and proposals. Students agree that they consume excessively. This is everyone’s individual responsibility (as regarded by all participants), although changes could be supported by institutions and companies (Early Childhood education students argue in favour of corporate responsibility). Knowledge deficits were identified in relation to production, distribution, and sale processes. They consider education to be the main factor for sustainability, while society is ranked as the least important, observing an evident disagreement in relation to environmental and economic factors (perception of collective responsibility; Early Childhood versus Primary Education students). Finally, they also outline teaching proposals (active and participatory) to foster education for sustainable development at schools.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Differences across Future Teachers Regarding Attitudes on Social Responsibility for Sustainable Development

Estrada-Vidal

Gómez

López-Cordero

et al. 2020

“…Community gardens, a type of urban green space managed by residents of a neighbourhood, have gained recognition for their positive impacts on public health and neighbourhood cohesion [1,2,3,4]. Previous research has examined the influence of community gardens on local ecology and sustainability [5,6,7,8], residents’ physical and mental health [9,10,11], as well as community empowerment and environmental justice [12,13,14,15,16]. Organisations as diverse as government departments, universities, and NGOs have promoted, though often from different perspectives, the development and construction of community gardens [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-Engaged Research for the Promotion of Healthy Urban Environments: A Case Study of Community Garden Initiative in Shanghai, China

Kou

Zhang

Liu

2019

The importance of community gardens in a healthy urban environment has been extensively documented, while the garden building involving communities has not been much explored in fast-developing cities. This study examines community engagement in garden building activities in a rapid urbanization context, aiming to explore the application of community-engaged research methods for the promotion of neighbourhood environments. The Community Garden Initiative consisting of an array of progressive actions is formulated by the research team, featuring a process of increasing involvement of community members and decreasing intensity of external interventions. These activities have been launched based on community-university partnerships in Shanghai since 2014, synchronising with a transformation of urban regeneration paradigm in China where people-oriented approaches are more emphasized. Five actions covering 70 community gardens are analysed through surveys on participants’ attitudes and perceptions towards the activities. The results of the study presented people’s rapid acceptance of participation in public affairs, reflected possible measures to promote public participation, and confirmed the positive impacts of the garden building on the neighbourhood environmental health as well as on the community-building. Taking into account that residents generally lack the consciousness and capacities required to implement actions at the initial stage of community engagement, we proposed in the conclusion to start with external interventions and capacity buildings carried out by professionals as a supplement to the ‘community-driven’ principle of CBPR methods.

“…However, these tools usually require a tradeoff between aggregation of multiple metrics into a single index and the ability to explore individual indicators. For instance, CalEnviroScreen and MD EJSCREEN produce overall EJ scores at the census tract level [6,43], whereas the EPA's EJSCREEN provides a multitude of indicators without an overall score [7]. Moreover, U.S.-wide tools such as the EPA's EJSCREEN do not address local issues that may be unique to a particular location.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

HGBEnviroScreen: Enabling Community Action through Data Integration in the Houston–Galveston–Brazoria Region

Bhandari

Lewis

Craft

et al. 2020

The Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) region faces numerous environmental and public health challenges from both natural disasters and industrial activity, but the historically disadvantaged communities most often impacted by such risks have limited ability to access and utilize big data for advocacy efforts. We developed HGBEnviroScreen to identify and prioritize regions of heightened vulnerability, in part to assist communities in understanding risk factors and developing environmental justice action plans. While similar in objectives to existing environmental justice tools, HGBEnviroScreen is unique in its ability to integrate and visualize national and local data to address regional concerns. For the 1090 census tracts in the HGB region, we accrued data into five domains: (i) social vulnerability, (ii) baseline health, (iii) environmental exposures and risks, (iv) environmental sources, and (v) flooding. We then integrated and visualized these data using the Toxicological Prioritization Index (ToxPi). We found that the highest vulnerability census tracts have multifactorial risk factors, with common drivers being flooding, social vulnerability, and proximity to environmental sources. Thus, HGBEnviroScreen is not only helping identify communities of greatest overall vulnerability but is also providing insights into which domains would most benefit from improved planning, policy, and action in order to reduce future vulnerability.