Lindenwood Magazine - Fall 2022

6 7 FALL 2022 EDITION FALL 2022 EDITION THE LINDENWOOD THE LINDENWOOD ...All these things I take for granted on a daily basis. I was so grateful to learn about [La Palma’s] challenges, and I can now use this experience to ground myself… We all get stuck in our own problems and thoughts from time to time, forgetting how lucky we are and how privileged our issues are. SASKIA FUCHS Pouring Associate Professor of Earth Sciences Dr. Ana Londono had an idea in 2021—one that felt almost too far-fetched to be possible. She wanted to initiate a service-learning project where students would connect with a rural community in Latin America, meet virtually with the locals, learn about the environmental challenges they faced, propose an action plan to remedy those issues, and empower students to affect positive change in the world. This is precisely what happened in the 2022 spring semester. For many students in Londono’s Fundamentals of Environmental Science class, this was their first time engaging with the subject. Londono contacted the NGO Global Bergade, whose facilitators connected her students with the rural community La Palma in southern Honduras. When the student participation costs were shown to be higher than expected, Associate Provost for Engaged Learning Dr. Mark Valenzuela found the money necessary to ensure each of Londono’s students were able to engage in the project. Once the service-learning began, students quickly learned La Palma had a strong sense of community and belonging, low crime rates, strong leadership, and awareness of their most pressing issues. These included lack of jobs, clean water, sanitation, transportation, and education. “...All these things I take for granted on a daily basis. I was so grateful to learn about [La Palma’s] challenges, and I can now use this experience to ground myself,” student Saskia Fuchs said. “We all get stuck in our own problems and thoughts from time to time, forgetting how lucky we are and how privileged our issues are.” Over the course of the semester, Londono’s students were forced out of their comfort zones by communicating in Spanish, confronting real-world environmental issues, and drafting sustainable solutions for a community thousands of miles away. “This was an amazing learning experience in so many ways... it has shaped the way I see the world,” said student Ella Dishong. Global Brigades facilitators recommended the students meet a need of the community and present them with the relevant tools, empowering La Palma to solve the issue themselves. This approach was designed to ensure the community’s long-term self-sufficiency. “Even with the language barrier and extra hours we encountered, there was a community that relied on us, so we had to made it work,” Londono stated. At the end of the project, the students created a community action plan and presented it to La Palma’s community leaders, not knowing if they would accept it or not. The students presented it not as a solution that would solve all their issues, but as a course of action that could improve the locals’ quality of life in a multitude of ways. RAINS FEATURE STORY FEATURE STORY SCIENCE STUDENTS LEAVE INTERNATIONAL IMPACTS By Phoebe Pinkner | University Photographer/Videographer