Measuring the Invisible: Air Pressure and Quality Monitoring

Ah, sweet Spring… that marvelous seemingly magical time of year when the trees leaf out overnight, the bulbs and bushes burst into full bloom, and everything awakens to a fluorescent yellow stickiness that makes many folks suffer miserably through the welcoming season. We tend to sense the air around us more this time of year because we can smell the fragrant aromas in the breeze and see the bright pollen that entices the insects to do their important work. In my area, the pollen count leads the weather segment most evenings this month. The other time of year we focus on air quality is fast-approaching. As increasing heat commands weather patterns, we will likely hear even more about critical ozone warnings while spectacular, yet bittersweet, sunsets intensify thanks to summer pollution.

Found all over the United States, particulates and ozone are just two of the six common air pollutants for which The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Realizing that air is a critical resource that most of us take for granted, I decided to learn more. Virtually invisible, it is a difficult concept to master and a challenging topic to teach. As part of a Community Grant Program Award from the North Texas Clean Air Coalition, I created the A-I-R website to support the integration of hands-on, inquiry-based activities with current tools and resources to create a positive, technology-infused learning environment. The Air Lift! activity is one way we helped lifelong learners kinesthetically test the force of air pressure. Download the instructions by clicking here or on the image.


Your students can find out about current air quality trends on the EPA’s Where You Live page.

Instructor Notes: The Air Lift! activity could be leveraged as a cross-disciplinary link to physics or even technology when it comes to measuring air pressure and quality. The first thing I did at those summer workshops was to set up a CO2 probeware experiment to measure a cricket’s respiration. Like in a magic show, I made it ‘clear’ that there was ‘nothing’ in the stoppered bottle but the cricket. After our lunch break, we studied the resultant graph that definitely indicated something more was happening!

A few years later, I used that same ‘trick’ to get the attention of a diverse crowd at the Texas Aquarium and Zoo Educator annual meeting one year where we focused on ‘measuring the invisible’ in terms of educational research. FYI, in each case, we celebrated the cricket’s release back into the wild before any harm came about to any of the participants.

HippoCampus Correlations: There are several excellent resources on the HippoCampus site too! Among others, Photochemical Smog illustrates how air masses can become inversion layers and trap air pollution in an area. Earth’s Atmosphere describes the varying layers and air pressures surrounding our planet. Air Movement describes how air pressure and temperature differentials affect wind patterns. Climate Systems explores the potential regional effects of changing water and air currents.

Remember that you can use the activity-based playlists on my Hippo page for quick access to each of the media files referenced in these posts! Also, you can use the links on the SRCpage archive to access the PDF activity files directly.

The A-I-R on my website stands for Action-Interaction-Reaction: YOU are THE key! Environmental action begins with environmental literacy. By providing teachers with the content knowledge, pedagogical skills, and technology tools needed to make a positive impact in their classrooms, we can encourage action – interaction – and reactions to air quality issues. Focusing on ecological knowledge, and social and political knowledge, and sustaining environmental resources in a personally-relevant context will develop the critical foundation required for action. Coming round full circle to the good/bad news noted in my first post, as John Muir put it: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” The Wind Map project (which will blow you away) is one way to visualize the interconnections that flow throughout this wonderful topic of Environmental Science. How do you cleverly teach critical concepts so that your students internalize them today?

Raising the proverbial bar: Upcycling ‘waste’ with technology-supported design

Good educators are experienced designers. The research shows that the teacher is the single most important variable in any classroom! Among so many other distractions, you are responsible for the learning environment in which you teach and your students learn. No need for any qualifiers there… they are always learning something; hopefully that new life experience includes something from your lesson plan.

Great educators have mastered the magic of minimizing ‘waste’ in terms of time, tools, and especially, non-essential effort. (That’s why it’s not at all surprising that we share this common interest in HippoCampus!) Engaging today’s students in yesterday’s classrooms can be a challenge indeed. In fact, it’s an uphill battle at times! But thankfully recent trends in teaching and learning are encouraging creativity in the classroom – for both teachers and students finally! Problem-based learning centered on real-world issues is one of the ways we can challenge learners to maximize their unique potential.

I was fascinated by the universal implications of upcycling as explained in Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) by William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Far beyond the relatively simple recycling practice we ‘boomers’ practice, the goal of upcycling is to prevent wasting potentially useful materials by making use of existing ones. Of course, recycling is still a key component of modern waste reduction; however, students may not realize that it does not provide a long-term solution.

In contrast to the third component of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" waste hierarchy, upcycling is a process that can be repeated in perpetuity of returning materials back to a pliable, usable form without degradation to their latent value – moving resources back up the supply chain. Upcycling requires innovative design and is likely critical to maintaining a balance between consumption and availability in our current system. Hence, the new activity Cycling Up Hill was designed as a summative assessment! Click on the following image to download a copy.


I’m certainly not suggesting that reducing and reusing and recycling are a waste! There are many excellent tools and resources on the EPA’s Learn the Issues page on Waste. For example, Individual WAste Reduction Model (iWARM) is the consumer version of the WAste Reduction Model (WARM) created by the EPA to help solid waste planners and organizations estimate the energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions from several different waste management practices. Extending the Energy Watchers activity, it explains the energy saved by recycling small quantities of common household products, rather than landfilling them.

HippoCampus Connections: As you’d expect, the HippoCampus site also includes relevant resources you can design into your lessons in a variety of ways! A Modern Landfill shows how landfills are created and illustrates the lasting change to the natural environment. The next option for garbage disposal is detailed in Incineration, which also contributes to landfills. The External Costs video explores relates the cost of pollution clean-up to private production costs and the overall economic and environmental impacts. The Superfund animation tells the story of Love Canal – and how waste dumping resulted in long-term health problems and government action.

Instructor Notes: If you have the time and resources, I think the Cycling Up Hill activity is a perfect fit for graphic animation as an alternative project outcome! Mashable offers a good summary of Free Animated GIF Creators You Can Use Online. I’m always looking for innovative ways to integrate new teaching techniques into the online learning environment, which adds the title of ‘instructional designer’ to my ever-growing list. If this aspect interests you too, you might want to check out Design for How People Learn by Julie Dirksen. In addition to practical information that can be applied immediately, she models a visually-rich presentation style that fits my classroom.

Sometimes seemingly off-task topics demand/deserve your attention. Leveraging those rare ‘teachable moments’ is never a waste of time. Knowing we made a unique contribution makes all the difference. Somehow, how we chose to orchestrate the physical, intellectual and emotional aspects of the learning environment makes having to deal with the tedious tasks of academic politics is worthwhile – and on occasion, priceless. Thank you for the great work you do in putting together great lessons for our future problem-solvers!

Internalizing “the Worth of Water”: Human Hydration and Water Conservation

If you drive over 800 miles across Texas (west to east) along Interstates 10 and 20 and 30, you can’t help but notice the differences between ecoregions as you move from the Chihuahuan Desert of El Paso to the Piney Woods of Texarkana. Having experienced that continuum of increasing annual precipitation (and being a native Texan), I’d almost bet my brother’s pickup truck that you’d find an almost direct and inverse correlation of location to attitude toward water conservation. I don’t even want to think about the real numbers for actual action at present.

As Benjamin Franklin said way back in 1746, “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water” (Poor Richard's Almanac). Depending on where and how your students live, they may not appreciate the critical importance of fresh drinking water - and I mean critical as in life-support. Most of the water on our planet is contained in two areas that most people can’t readily access or use. And on top of that, all of the water that is on this planet is the same water that we’ve always had! The Water, Water Everywhere! activity shows how very limited the water that we have to use is relative to the total supply.


Used as a diagnostic assessment, this hands-on exploration adds an urgent perspective to protecting and conserving our precious water – and all natural – resources. And since March 11-17 is National Groundwater Awareness Week this year, the EPA’s Learn the Issues page on Water is a terrific place to start all sorts of investigations that ought to have a great deal of personal relevance to your students! With activities for all ages, students can find out how water is stored in an aquifer, how groundwater can become contaminated, and how this contamination may end up in their drinking water!

HippoCampus Connections: You can also incorporate these resources from the HippoCampus site in a variety of ways! The Water Cycle exploration in NOAA: Water Cycle graphically shows where water accumulates in the water cycle – and how it moves through the cycle. The Global Impact video, also in NOAA: Water Cycle explains how water pollution threatens our relatively scarce fresh water supply. Similarly, Water Resources illustrates what happens to fresh water within a watershed. The Water Distillation video shows how pond water, sea water, and tap water can be purified. And the Wastewater Treatment video describes how we are reclaiming reusable water resources.

Instructor Notes: Click here to see how Dr. Fred Fifer helped Texas science teachers learn how to integrate the Water, Water Everywhere! activity into their classroom teaching. He goes on to show how this experiential training activity can lead to discussions on how this experience can help all understand the term 'variable' and the importance of water conservation.

Researchers estimate that half of the world's population is chronically dehydrated. And in America, that level is thought to be even higher at 75 percent of the population. According to WebMD, “Dehydration can occur in anyone of any age, but it is most dangerous for babies, small children, and older adults.” Check out the Hydration Calculator to figure out how much water your body requires to function properly. To see how much your students have internalized, challenge them to create an ‘infographic’ of the benefits of hydration – along with the percentage of water in their own bodies! Here’s an example to help sustain your flow of creativity…

A Sustainable Frontier Ethic: Reclaiming Non-Renewable Energy Sites

This month’s blog topic, Land & Cleanup, is far more personally relevant than I expected! Beautiful spring-like weather coerced me to do my annual yard cleanup much earlier than usual. Even though I’ve xeriscaped significantly, non-native invasive vines and saplings commandeer a good bit of physical energy each season.

Speaking of energy, the previous post focused on one kind of renewable energy: solar. The Great Buffalo Shortage activity helps students learn how to weigh the trade-offs of mining operations, a common way of extracting non-renewable energy sources. Like the buffalo, that almost became extinct, without proper management, we may lose the environment itself. Click on the image below or right here to review a truly hands-on model that offers a fun formative assessment!


Many students tend to believe that mining always produces a profit. They may not know about the regulations governing mining and requirements for land management or how to weigh the yield. As detailed on the EPA’s abandoned mine lands site, AMLs present serious threats to human health and the environment… not to mention often extreme scarring of the land. I think it’s well worth your time to scroll way down NASA’s remote sensing tutorial page to see satellite images of long term changes in resource use, such as strip mining and the progress of land reclamation.

Instructor Notes: It’s sadly easy to relate real-world stories of energy-related environmental destruction back to almost every activity I’ve shared to date! Think about the implications of mining operations in terms of systems (Balancing Acts), adaptation (Moth Mothers), food webs (Oops, I Broke It), and population (No More Room), for starters. That’s why I was so happy to see a new Fact Sheet added to the EPA resource site just this past December. Directly related to the Energy Watchers activity, Shining Light on a Bright Opportunity: Developing Solar Energy on Former Mine Lands provides a great summary of solar energy – and how abandoned mining areas can serve as ‘renewed’ sites for renewable energy production.

HippoCampus Connections: Several excellent resources on HippoCampus support an understanding of why the revitalization and reuse of damaged land – and protection of land in general – is important to each of us. The Mining for Borax video shows a real-world success story of managing this balance. Unsustainable Frontier Ethic simulation shows why it’s critical we find and maintain a balance by explaining desert encroachment. Tree Harvesting explains how we can mechanically remove a renewable resource in a sustainable way. The Fight to Preserve the Bollana Wetlands presents a case study of how citizens took action to save a local environment from over-development. Other related items of possible interest include: Mine Restoration and Area Strip Mining.

FYI: I’ve set up playlists on myHippo page at the new HippoCampus site to match all of these blog activities for your convenience.

Even though your students may not have direct exposure to mining operations, other than the many historic towns that come to mind initially (Leadville, CO for example), there are many active operations globally. See what’s closest to home on the USGS Mine and Mineral Processing Plant Locations map – and then see if your students agree with the practices and policies in place there today!

Seeing is believing… we are cramming to capacity.

Once again the seasons appear to have changed overnight! A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving Day, I was in Colorado where we’d already had 3 snows (8-9 inch accumulations each) and bitterly freezing temperatures. Just 12 hours later, when I arrived home in north central Texas, it was 80 degrees outside and spring green had replaced the chaff of an historically hot summer. According to the LCRA, “The 12 months from October 2010 through September 2011 were the driest for that 12-month period in Texas since 1895, when the state began keeping rainfall records.” My hometown is now enforcing Stage 3 Water Conservation Measures as the winter forecast does not hold much promise for relief. But the temperature has dropped and the leaves have changed to signal Fall, finally!

On a grander scale, climate changes naturally over a long period of time. This gradual progression usually allows plants and animals to balance the carrying capacity of their environment. Whether or not you ‘believe’ in global warming, the impact of human activity is causing rapid changes in our shared environment. Adults have actually seen the changes manifest: we know that the current local weather patterns are different from what seemed relatively predictable when we were kids; we see the impact of that on flora and fauna, not to mention the domino effects of continued habitat destruction. Today’s students, however, often have difficulty connecting our need for the same resources as other organisms with the amount of life the planet can support. Many times they also fail to associate changes in climate with the earth’s ability to sustain life. That’s why the No More Room activity is designed to provide a tangible representation of carrying capacity from the bottom of a food web up!




Instructor Notes: This activity can be used as a summative assessment to see if students really grasp the fact that climate change is a problem that is affecting people and the environment – and that they can take action to make a difference right now. There’s a lot of great information in A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change on the EPA website, which is available in the Learn the Issues section on Climate Change. In addition to a virtual field trip around the world to explore the effects of climate change, students can calculate their impact on the environment and learn about specific ways to help solve this global challenge. Please share your ideas for incorporating the interactive Global Warming Effects Map too!

Somewhat related to this topic, I am a visual learner, always have been and hopefully always will be. I suppose that’s part of the reason I so love to ‘watch’ the seasons change. Regardless of my preference, experts say that over 80 percent of what a child learns in school is presented visually. And sadly, up to 25 percent of schoolchildren may have vision problems that can affect their ability to learn. The good news is that many of those roadblocks can be reduced if not eliminated with rehabilitation or therapy! The COVD website is a great starting point for finding out more about vision development and vision therapy – and vision and learning. Please review their Symptoms Checklist of common signs and symptoms of conditions to look for that may indicate a vision problem. They can occur at any age and typical eye exams and school screenings do not check for these critical functions, unfortunately.

As we continue to leverage new tools and technologies to track global climate change and to assess neuro-sensory diagnostics, teachers have exciting opportunities to incorporate new techniques and strategies for more meaningful learning for an increasingly diverse audience. For example, Environmental Science is a wonderful topic for exploring ways to use infographics as creative assessments. As explained on Wikipedia, “information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics present complex information quickly and clearly”. When checking the forecast for my recent drive from CO to TX, I was naturally and immediately drawn to the GraphiCast (graphical short term forecast) produced by the National Weather Service.

In Teaching with Infographics, the New York Times acknowledges that it’s becoming increasingly important for students to be able to read and interpret visual representations of information. I started my explorations with 10 Awesome Free Tools to Make Infographics and The Anatomy of an Infographic: 5 Steps to Create a Powerful Visual. What changes in teaching and learning are you noticing? What ideas could you develop to inspire your students to share facts and figures about their place in the changing environment?

How a ‘half-life’ can impact a whole life…

In the aftermath of unexpected earthquakes in unlikely locales, in anticipation of the already interesting hurricane season, and in preparation for 10th anniversary remembrances of September 11, 2001, we start these content-focused blogs with the timely EPA issue of Emergencies. Addressing ‘uncertainty’ within the context of Environmental Science, we can empower students to be prepared for and respond more readily to natural disasters, hazardous spills, and the unexpected by helping them understand the basics. These future decision-makers may be able to safeguard against the rapid changes happening on a global scale and certainly cope better with the consequences with an understanding of the complete process.

Think back to last month's Balancing Acts activity... often, seemingly unrelated subjects are tightly linked. For example, the nuclear emergency in Japan that most of us watched in real-time this spring was caused by a tsunami. In the event of a nuclear disaster, calculating the half-life of radioactive contamination will determine when an area is safe. We tend to dismiss radioactivity as a natural phenomenon; many people think that it only occurs in nuclear power plants or as the result of a nuclear accident. Radioactive rays are emitted when a radioactive atom decays. Nuclear radiation can be a good thing depending on how it is released. Nuclear medicine is a specialty that relies on the process of radioactive decay in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, for example.

Students often associate ‘half-life’ with nuclear power, but do not understand always that it equally applies to other naturally radioactive elements - nor do they associate the dangers of the long-term ramifications of radioactive materials disposal with respect to nuclear waste management. Best used as a formative assessment, A Dating Game helps learners internalize what a ‘half-life’ really represents with a simple, fun, and safe activity that stimulates discussion. Click here to download the assignment details!


HippoCampus Connections: The ability to transfer knowledge across situations is a sure sign of understanding and mastery. The Coral Age Dating activity in NOAA: Seamounts is a real-life simulation of the concept presented to actually define and apply isotopic age dating of corals.

Because some students may not comprehend the drastic effects of natural disasters, the before and after images in NOAA: Hurricanes can help them appreciate the powers at play. And, in the case of natural disasters, we can show students a proactive aspect as early warning systems have been implemented to evacuate threatened areas, for example see the Tsunami Warning System in NOAA: Ocean Waves.

Instructor Notes: As those of us who replay the vivid images of the 2001 terrorist attacks in our mind’s eye realize how ubiquitous communication networks can have equally positive and negative impacts that do not cancel out, but accumulate over time. Therefore, it’s important to identify, acknowledge, and possibly discuss the differences in perspectives among the many stakeholders who influence your students. Remember that most of today’s high school students were likely just 3-8 years old way back in 2001! I’m excited about the potential of leveraging new technologies for the betterment of the environment and its inhabitants – come whatever may… Challenge your students to make a difference right now! What Apps for the Environment might they propose?

Education and the Environment: The same, but different

We've talked a little about students and teachers and environmental science. As the vet on the net, I feel compelled to share my thoughts on being the guide on the side, so to speak, with respect to curriculum before we dive into content-specific labs. And be it known that I think our students desperately need to hear a sage on the stage from time to time. It’s just that what we more experienced folk ought to tell/show is different in this post-information revolution age. We are living in 'interesting times' indeed…

Anyone reading this blog is likely familiar with OERs (Open Educational Resources); HippoCampus is a great example of a rich environment that is keeping up with both new technologies and new directions for education. Being in higher education (and highly skeptical of this sort of significant change), I felt it was my duty to see how/if these new OERs might be useful. Having been an online learner as well, I am especially sensitive to maintaining a reasonable balance between my expectations for students and what all I could deliver via distance and face-to-face courses. I was happy to find that the licensed resources in the NROC Environmental Science course enabled the efficient development of and supported the effective delivery of an online Integrated Earth Science for Teachers course that I designed and taught. Visualize your own favorite teaching activities and supplements as you review the Balancing Acts activity.


Balancing Acts is a formative activity that helps students operationally define the center of mass. That’s how you might integrate it into a constructivist Physics classroom. In an Environmental Science class, imagine how the bigger picture of an intricately related system, like a local habitat, an ecosystem, our planet, and perhaps even this universe ultimately, is easily transferred to the model. Think about the implications for your teaching practice! That’s the power of experiential learning as we all know. Click here to explore various representations of this activity as it was presented in a professional development program.

Focusing its resources on several key issues where it believes it can have significant impact (Community Juggling), the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been a strong proponent of OER development. Its focus on education and environment programs provides another powerful application of Balancing Acts. Pay particular attention to the many aspects of the CLES scales introduced earlier with the Rope Trick activity and reinforced in this brief clip.

Today's educators are challenged to provide hands-on experiences, inquiry-based activities, and problem-based labs with direct application to real world situations. Combining that with mobile learning technologies and social networking capabilities, the trendy pedagogical approach has been tagged as 'connectivist'. Like the many standards revisions underway, this re-focusing of educational priorities makes the role of the teacher even more critical. Innovative models for education are being designed with the intention of, as explained by James Zull (2002) in The Art of Changing the Brain, "creating conditions that lead to change in a learner's brain. We can't get inside and rewire a brain, but we can arrange things so that it gets rewired. If we are skilled, we can set up conditions that favor this rewiring, and we can create an environment that nurtures it" (p. 5).

The great news is that the reasons great teachers teach will not likely change in spite of the fact that the tools and techniques of the profession will transition continually. The exciting business of these 'interesting times' is that we can realize the goal of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) by "re-defining the very idea of a course, creating an open network of learners with emergent and shared content and interactions" right now. The field of Environmental Science not only offers a personally relevant context for education, but also a practical preparation for 21st century leaders when one considers the opportunities for differentiating instruction based on the MOOC principles of content aggregation, remixing, re-purposing, and feeding forward. What is it that drives your practice? How are you managing such rapid change to maintain balance in your classroom? What advice would you give to new teachers?

Real solutions for real problems

Paraphrasing a classic line, ‘Humanity, we have some problems’. In terms of the environment, like any other system, one ‘solution’ impacts another and so on… so we must unravel things together with lots of communication, collaboration, and creativity to flourish. At least that’s what some who know how to ‘fix’ the educational system are saying right? I’m pretty sure that’s what most environmental scientists and exemplary environmental science teachers have been doing for decades!

Remember how the Community Juggling activity looked and sounded? That experience is one way we can identify stuck patterns of thinking and doing. If we give students a chance to exercise their own visualization skills along with the freedom to imagine possibilities, they’ll likely devise ingenious solutions that fit the complex situations faced today. Rope Trick is a diagnostic activity targeted at fostering that critical ability for any field; check it out!


Could you get loose? Click here to see how other teachers fared at a professional development workshop! Do your students build mental images of the concepts you cover? An oft-overlooked part of our job is to give students a frame of reference and conceptual understanding that naturally transfers to other contexts. Click here for an in-depth explanation of why Rope Trick really works.

That’s how collaborative problem solving happens in real-world success stories. And that’s how it’s happening in real student projects right now! For example, I was re-charged by the phenomenal work displayed at Catamount Institute’s Student Symposium this spring. Community leaders, parents, teachers, administrators, and students teamed on their own time to figure out what they would/can do to make unique contributions to solving global environmental issues. And they’re making it happen!

We tend to forget that it’s just as important to learn what doesn’t work as what does work. That’s called research. The inherent power of problem-based learning can be exponentially increased by building on personal relevance, attending to uncertainty, and developing student negotiation, critical voice, and shared control. These are the 5 scales of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey on which I base my research. From another perspective, Shelly Blake-Plock shares her Thinking about Collaboration on the TeachPaperless blog. The only trick is in adapting (or replacing) current practice with practical accountability.

With unprecedented amounts of information at the fingertips of most of our students, our role as educators (no longer teachers) is made even more exciting with the power of digital media and electronic tools. The HippoCampus site empowers even greater advances! How are you keeping pace with new technologies? More importantly, how do YOU set a proper pace for YOUR students?

Breaking the ice – and maintaining focus...

Environmental Science: what a timely, important, and interesting interdisciplinary topic; we can blog about anything and everything! As John Muir put it: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” That good news is also the 'bad' news if you have a targeted objective to achieve in this multimodal, multimedia society. Productive conversations build on common experience. Regardless of the group, I always introduce myself by way of a fun team-building activity. Quickly scan the Community Juggling activity detail.


In this case we have the topic. As facilitator I'll direct the focus to lifelong learners, our curious students of all ages and backgrounds.

You can see how this icebreaker is easy to focus on systems, a key concept in environmental science. I've used it as a diagnostic assessment to gauge student knowledge of system components and awareness of issues that bombard the system flow. Attempting to find patterns and causal relationships is evidence of reflection – and a skill that can be developed from an early age; students often need to practice transferring that skill to other areas as they grow. They too can become overwhelmed with too much information and too many options.

As an educator, you know what's going to get your students from point A to point B. My goal is to point out some useful tools and to inspire innovation for creating new and different applications of them in your particular context. Via this blog, I'll link simple, targeted (and teacher-tested) activities to vetted, professional (and freely-available) NROC resources that you can weave into your lessons appropriately. Future posts will be organized by the topics detailed on the EPA website so you can incorporate breaking news.

No matter how many links I string together, I bring just one perspective to this on-going work. It’s going to take more than that to make a difference in our classrooms, communities, and countries. So, fellow jugglers, how could/do you leverage the Environmental Science course content to support your practice?