The Center for Environmental Studies (CES) at Rice University, with support from Rice’s Building Research on Inequality and Diversity to Grow Equity program, recently hosted its second-annual free summer program for Houston Independent School District high school students. The weeklong experience hosted on Rice’s campus focuses on environmental justice through storytelling via arts and media practices.
“We target communities that are under-resourced, so our first priority is really trying to bring students from schools that have not had the kind of funding and support they should have historically,” said Weston Twardowski, CES associate director and lecturer in environmental studies.
The program introduced students to various aspects of environmental justice and the critical issues impacting their communities and the planet. It started with a tour of Rice’s trees.
“Dawn Roth-Ehlinger, who is the Rice campus arborist, does a really fantastic tour,” Twardowski said. “It’s just a fascinating and really fun way to start the week by seeing all these trees and learning about what keeps them healthy and all the incredible work they do for our campus.”
The tree tour was one of the many activities that provided students a precollege experience while allowing them to explore Rice’s campus. Throughout the week, students engaged in three different field trips around town, discussing environmental justice issues specific to the Houston area. The program also brought in experts from various community organizations to discuss topics such as food justice, public health and the climate crisis.
“We get to work with some remarkable kids, but I’ll say a lot of them come in with a notion that environmental work means conservation or ecological study,” Twardowski said. “By the end of the week, we have students who say, ‘Oh, I want to do environmental communications,’ or ‘I’m really interested in the research of climate science,’ or ‘I’m really interested in these public health ramifications and thinking about why my neighborhood has higher levels of cancer than others do.’”
This year’s theme incorporated storytelling to help students communicate their findings and insights effectively. The students also had the opportunity to formulate their own research questions and explore different research practices. This exposure aimed to show them the interdisciplinary nature of environmental work and the various career paths available within this field. The culmination of the program saw students presenting their research in various formats, including videos, presentations and handmade newspapers and brochures.
“The question we were answering last year and this year as well is how do you communicate that? How do you bring that to a wider public? How do you take this to your community, to people that you care about?” Twardowski said.
As the program grows, Twardowski said he is focusing on its future.
“We had a much larger pool of applicants for the second year,” he said. “So it’s a program that we’re hoping will just continue to go on and grow, and we’ll be able to continue to reach more and more students in the Houston area.”
Learn more about CES here.