Environmental Justice Students Learning to be Good Stewards of the Earth

Earlier this month, seniors in Mr. Patrick McGarry’s Environmental Justice classes used a drone to assess the Viatorian Province Center's vulnerability to wildfires. Just last week, they spent their classes in a science lab testing drinking water and exploring ways to contain oil spills.

It hardly sounds like the typical curriculum for a senior ethics class, but wait. Place these experiments in the context of environmental issues and “integral ecology,” as Pope Francis discussed in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, and it begins to fall into place.

“The goal is to help students connect these issues to the well-being of living beings – and the environment we share,” Mr. McGarry said, adding that the lab units were the result of a collaboration between the science and theology departments.

In the lab, they examined ways to contain oil spills and drew context from the 2010 oil spill in a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. A pipeline break caused it, and it resulted in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history.

After reading about the massive oil spill before the lab, students learned that the oil was unable to be contained and consequently spilled onto the shore. It contaminated fish and wildlife in the river, a possible drinking water source, and much of the vegetation growing on the shoreline. It would take nearly a year to clean up.

In the lab, students created a small sample size of the spill by dropping 5 milliliters of corn oil into 100 milliliters of water. They used a spoon to try to remove the oil while leaving as much of the water intact.

Ultimately, they looked at ways to contain an oil spill in water before it reaches the shoreline.

Senior Sasha Summers said he liked the hands-on aspects of the lab, adding, “It’s a little different because it’s a theology course.”

Students worked in groups at each lab table. Senior Katie Watson enjoyed working with all the lab instruments and the challenge of the unit, but she pondered a deeper meaning: “We’re learning about how these environmental disasters disproportionately affect the impoverished.”

Senior Rachael Davis worked with Sasha to recreate the oil spill and test drinking water in the prior lab. “We’re learning how these things actually infect the environment.”

Mr. McGarry again put it into the perspective of the Catholic Church and its responsibility to be a good steward of the environment.

“We use various sources to understand the Church’s perspective on stewardship,” he said, “and apply Catholic social teaching to these problems.”