Geography instructors generally have had experience collecting field data ... case for using an urban stream cleanup as a meaningful service-learning project .... Dispatch.) 155. Figure 1. Looking east on Midlothian Turnpike (January. 2,2007).
Reedy Creek Cleanup: The Evolution of a University Geography Service-Learning Project Tammy E. Parece and Helen Ruth Aspaas ABSTRACT Service-learning courses within a university setting help students to better understand their roles as members of civil society This article examines the evolution of an urban stream cleanup project that has been part of a world regions geography course for six years. After connecting course goals with the current best practice literature on student engagement and "greening of the curriculum," the context of the cleanup is discussed, focusing on the physical geography of the urban stream and political and university perspectives that influence the environmental status of the stream. The article analyzes the successes and challenges of. the project and identifies strategies that have evolved in order to enhance the success of the project. It closes with recommendations for using this as a model for generating service-learning courses at other universities. Key Words: service-learning,urban watersheds,stream cleanup,green curriculum,Chesapeake Bay
Tammny E. Parece graduatedfrom Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia, USA, with a Bachelor of InterdisciplinaryStudies emphasizing environmental sciencesandgeography. Sheserved as the undergraduate teaching assistantfor the Reedy Creek service-learningproject in 2005 and 2006. She is a member of Gamma Theta Upsilon, the internationalgeographical honor society. Helen Ruth Aspaas is an associateprofessor of geography at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, USA. She teaches undergraduatehuman geography courses and a world regions course that has a service-learningand writing-intensive component. Her research focuses on rural economic developmentfor minority women in the United States and ruralwomen in Kenya and Uganda.
INTRODUCTION
Service-learning courses place students into communities where they work to satisfy a community-defined need. At the same time, students engage in active learning that enhances acquisition and understanding of course objectives. As universities redefine the learning components of their strategic plans, one goal generally focuses on active learning as a best practice in instruction (VCU 2020 Strategic Plan 2006). Service-learning, by engaging students through volunteerism, lends a recursive component to the educational experience. Students' community work creates better understanding of existing problems, and this understanding yields better informed solutions (Decker 1998). Geography instructors generally have had experience collecting field data 'and working in settings where they interact with the public to define solutions to particular social problems. Geography courses provide a fertile context for initiating service-learning components. Dorsey (2001), Crump (2002), and Eflin and Sheaffer (2006) have carefully analyzed successful service-learning experiences in their undergraduate and graduate courses. One can attribute the role of fieldwork in the geography discipline as a natural springboard for introducing a service-learning component to an existing course. This article, written jointly by a faculty member and a student, makes the case for using an urban stream cleanup as a meaningful service-learning project in an upper division undergraduate, general education world regions course. Principally, we demonstrate that faculty who teach full-time in undergraduate programs with minimal resources can institute a similar project into their classes. Our success with developing student engagement can encourage colleagues to see service-learning as a best practice mechanism for instruction. Finally, we show that a grassroots effort such as ours can continue to be successful over time if the instructors are willing to allow the project to evolve in response to student assessments and community needs. After situating our service-learning course in the broader student engagement literature, we then describe the geography of the urban watershed and our rationale for promoting a cleanup. Following a discussion of the project's challenges and successes, we map the way forward for maintaining and evolving the service-learning component. We conclude by making recommendations for applying this service-learning component to other geography courses that address watershed concerns. SERVICE-LEARNING AND THE COMMUNITY
Service-learning in university settings has drawn its major impetus from the National and Community Service Act of 1990. This act responded to a growing sense of volunteerism among the American public. At the same time, universities reevaluated their roles in the community and the overall learning experience of their students. Service-learning evolved as an educational option that positively influenced the community view of the university while enhancing the students' learning experiences (Ward 1999; Steinke et al. 2002; Vernon and Foster 2002). A successful service-learning project is one that seeks out and identifies legitimate community needs that can be matched by enthusiastic students with a desire to serve (Jacoby 1996; Crump 2002; Yarwood 2005). When service-learning was introduced into the course, an environmental component was deemed essential because environmental themes are discussed as four world regions are investigated. The cleanup of Reedy Creek was an appropriate application. Trash had accumulated throughout the stream channel, and students were
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eager to provide help in cleaning up the watershed. Students can complete the project within a limited period of time; they have the vitality required to work on a challenging outdoor project, and they are genuinely interested in helping to solve a local environmental problem. Although students are not trained environmental experts, through group work, interaction with the community, and integration of previous formal and informal knowledge, students can bring new perspectives to help reenergize the community to solve its own problems. 'Ultimately, this project's goal is for the community to regain ownership over the stream's health. tUsing the same model, this project can be applied to another stream within our urban area. BEST PRACTICES PEDAGOGY AND SERVICE-LEARNING
Our course is designed to produce successful servicelearning experiences. Because it is an upper division course, juniors and seniors bring a sense of goal setting and task completion. By their junior or senior year, students have had opportunities to perform team tasks and so are preconditioned to work as a group. Because the course meets a general education requirement, it attracts students from diverse majors. This diversity of perspectives provides a variety of lenses that focus on the service-learning experience, thus providing a range of solutions. This is a definite advantage confirmed by Bridge (2001). The classroom instruction experiences are carefully planned to integrate with the service-learning experiences (Elwood 2004). Part of the classroom instruction focuses on environmental problems facing four world regions: North America, Central/South America, Europe, and Russia and the newly independent states (Pulsipher and Pulsipher 2006). Adding the stream cleanup helps students to integrate course content with the reality of local stream pollution within proximity to the university. The literature suggests that when students are active rather than passive the learning experience is most effective (Dewey 1956; Buckley et al. 2004). During the stream cleanups, students actively engage in work within the community. But they are doing much more. By requiring students to compare information learned in class discussions to a local problem and transfer classroom knowledge to a real-world setting (Yarwood 2005), servicelearning opens the door to engagement. Problem-solving situations become much more complicated yet more reflective of real-world situations as a consequence of the service-learning experience. Students see that cleaning up a stream as a service-learning project requires that they ask questions about the source of the problem, why the problem continues, and how they can propose long-term strategies to solve this problem (Jarosz and Johnson-Bogart 1996; Tsang 1998). Students evaluate
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their own service-learning experience and use it to draw conclusions and make recommendations. They also begin to understand the complexities of working with people of diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds in an effort to solve a community problem (Kleinman 1998). Because service-learning links active community work with academic content, students must demonstrate how engagement in the project has enhanced their understanding of course themes. Assessment takes place through the written work that students complete. Students submit reflections in which they respond to the questions, What work did you do? What was the impact of your specific work? and How can the project help to solve the long-term reasons for this problem? By submitting these reflections over the course of the semester, students see how their own perspectives shift as they continually connect course content with the volunteer experience (Serow 1997; Elwood 2004). In a final integrative essay, students relate their servicelearning experience to the environmental challenges faced by the regions discussea during the semester. Students see that real-world problems are complex, and solutions require critical and integrative thinking. The addition of a service-learning component along with intensive writing demands has allowed the course to become much more focused on higher order thinking (Bloom 1956; Ives and Obenchain 2006). Participation in service-learning can often be a transforming experience. Not only do students gain critical understanding of local situations that can be tied to course content, but students may also undergo significant attitudinal changes or enhanced appreciations as a result of their service-learning participation. A helpful analysis of such change is given by McMillan in her discussion of a service-learning project in South Africa (McMillan 2002). Assessment of the affective domain of learning, while not easy to accomplish, is garnered from student essays. The self-analyses show that students have increased their respect for civic responsibility and collective action. Students are pleased with the work they accomplished and express a desire to continue to do volunteer work long after the course requirements have ended (Waterman 1997; Waldstein and Reiher 2001), which is a testament to the value of any service-learning project. ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICE-LEARNING, A NATURAL FIT WITH GEOGRAPHY
Environmental sustainability education can gain a valuable boost from the inclusion of service-learning. Geographers know that human-environment and manland connections are core to our discipline, and many of us substantiate the inclusion of this theme by referring to Pattison's "Four Traditions in Geography" or to the five themes that are emphasized by the National Geographic Society for K-12 geography curricula (Pattison 1964; Geography Education Standards Project 1994). Education
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in environmental sustainability is easily grounded in this human-environment connection (Fearn 2001; Kellog 2002; Moran 2003; Bednarz 2006). Service-learning provides the venue for students to see firsthand, in a local setting, environmental threats and to work collectively with one another and with the community to solve problems (Clayton 2000; Covitt 2002; Chalkley 2006). This stream cleanup is an example of what Haigh (2005) calls "the greening of the curriculum."
Also, in its lower reaches, the stream courses through two contiguous city parks (first Forest Hill Park and then the James River Park System) before emptying into the James River. The James River in turn flows into the Chesapeake Bay, thus making Reedy Creek a secondary level tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. Since "all watersheds exist as nested hierarchies" (Moran 2003, 68), what happens in Reedy Creek ultimately affects the Chesapeake Bay.
PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF REEDY CREEK
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES FOR REEDY CREEK
Reedy' Creek's watershed covers 2,700 acres of Department Virginia of (Commonwealth perennial 3.68-mile Environmental Quality 2005). The stream runs through residential and commercial areas and empties into the James River. Near its headwaters, wetlands were created at the site of former apartments (Sinclair et al. 2001). The stream's upper reaches run almost parallel to a major thoroughfare on the southwestern side of the city (Fig. 1) where houses are found on the northern bank and businesses on the southern bank. These businesses include strip malls, automobile repair shops, a local television station, and a law firm. Contained within the Reedy Creek watershed are three public elementary schools and one public high school (ADC: The Map People 2004; HDR Engineering 2000). Among the houses, schools, and churches in the lower reaches, a nineteen-acre heavily wooded area surrounds one of the stream's major tributaries. This area was slated for the construction of a new elementary school, but local residents took action, formed the Reedy Creek Coalition, and successfully found an alternative location for the school, leaving the area free from development (Rumsey 2005). Since that intervention, the coalition takes action when government decisions adversely affect the watershed.
Reedy Creek's course is not in its natural, meandering state. In an effort to calm public outcry over basement flooding in the 1970s, the city began the Reedy Creek Improvement Project (Sinclair et al. 2001). By early 1990, more than one-third of Reedy Creek was placed within concrete culverts in an effort to rapidly remove large quantities of water from residential areas (Richmond Magazine 1998). These channelized sections are not contiguous and in some places are wider than the natural channel. The widened sections flow into the natural narrower channel, causing a pinch point and exponentially increasing the volume, force, and flow of the stream through these areas. The increased volume has caused stream bank erosion and streambed degradation in the lower reaches. In the watershed's upper reaches, storm runoff comes from 4.2 square miles of impervious surfaces (Sinclair et al. 2001). Since impervious surfaces prevent water from penetrating the ground, the intersection of German School Road and Midlothian Turnpike repeatedly floods during periods of moderate to heavy rainfall (Fig. 2). In an effort to gauge the level of flooding at this intersection, the City of Richmond has permanently installed a measuring pole. Prior to 1972 unregulated raw sewage and industrial waste poured into Reedy Creek, and public access was
Figure1. Looking east on Midlothian Turnpike (January 2,2007). Reedy Creek runs behind the businesses on left. (Image courtesy of Tammy Parece.)
Figure 2. Flooding from Reedy Creek (September 16, 1999). (Image courtesy of The Richmond-Times Dispatch.)
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prohibited due to health hazards. In 1972 the City of Richmond, completed construction of sewer lines into wastewater treatment plants (James River Park 2005). The sewer system was combined for sanitary waste and storm water runoff. During times of moderate and heavy rainfall, a combined sewer overflow (CSO) diverts the sewage and storm water into Reedy Creek in an effort to avoid overloading the wastewater treatment plant (James River Association 1995). The City of Richmond recently redirected this flow into a pipe that empties into the James River downstream from Reedy Creek's mouth. The manager of the James River Park System notes that water testing near the mouth of Reedy Creek reveals occasionally high levels of E. coli bacteria, while at the same time testing at other locations farther up the James River show normal levels. The manager noted that, in late July and early August of 2005, three individuals participating in activities around Reedy Creek developed infections in cuts that eventually resulted in blood poisoning. Apparently the redirection of the CSO has not eliminated bacterial contaminants. No systematic government testing is conducted on the stream, despite the fact that sewer pipes pass directly over the stream (White 2005). Some members of the Reedy Creek Coalition conduct ad hoc water testing for E. col. According to a member of the coalition, this water testing was conducted every third Saturday of the month from June 2003 through December of 2004 and three times in 2005. At times, the results have indicated increased levels of E. coli, although the geographical and biological source of the contamination remains unknown. This data has been shared with the Commonwealth's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) (Shanabruch 2005). The DEQ started keeping lists of impaired waters in 1992. In 2000 the department implemented a ten-year plan to restore and maintain water quality in identified impaired waters. This plan, Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL), identifies the total amount of pollutants a water body can assimilate and still meet water quality standards. The plan lists individual segments of different water bodies and the schedule for which that particular segment's pollutants should be addressed. According to a Reedy Creek Coalition member, their ad hoc testing shows that Reedy Creek exceeds the TMDLs by more than 10 percent (Shanabruch 2005). Reedy Creek was finally placed on the TMDL list in 2002 with its pollution problems to be investigated no later than 2014 (Commonwealth of Virginia 2005). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also lists Reedy Creek as impaired because it does not meet recreational suitability-uses as designated by the Clean Water Act (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2002). Other major pollution concerns for the stream are surface water runoff (nonpoint source pollution) and trash. Since Reedy Creek is located in an urban area, rain washes pesticides and fertilizers from lawns and vehicle contaminants from roads and parking lots into the stream. 156
People toss trash from their vehicles as they travel over the many bridges that go over the stream. Others dispose of their waste directly into the watershed. Within the Forest Hill Park and the James River Park System, patrons of the parks pick up trash and make sure any trash they generateis put in the proper bin for recycling or transfer to the landfill (White 2005). The Friends of Forest Hill Park Association also conduct periodic cleanups within the park. Since semiregular cleanups are only done within limited sections of Reedy Creek's watershed, a void existed for caring for the remainder of the watershed. Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) geography students semiannually fill this void. The need for improvement of watersheds is recognized at all levels of government. The Environmental Protection Agency promotes an Adopt Your Watershed program. The Commonwealth of Virginia, through the Department of Conservation and Recreation, promotes and manages an Adopt-A-Stream Program, and, the City of Richmond has an Adopt-A-Spot Program. The Commonwealth of Virginia's program recognizes organizations for their cleanup efforts, and the VCU geography students hold this recognition for Reedy Creek. The Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Richmond programs provide trash bags and gloves for any cleanup activities. The Adopt-aSpot Program arranges for trash pickup (City of Richmond 2005). Other funding is limited by budgetary restraints and so service-learning students step in to provide labor for the cleanups and to garner resources from local businesses to help make cleanup days more pleasant. EVOLUTION OF THE REEDY CREEK SERVICE-LEARNING PROJECT
In 2001 and 2002, the first two years of this project, the students' assigned duties were quite simply to do cleanups of the stream. In 2001 two separate cleanup sessions were held and approximately fifteen (thirty-gallon) bags of trash were collected from the area between the two city parks and the James River (approximately 25 percent of the stream). About half of the trash collected consisted of recyclables. In 2002 students intended to clean up approximately two miles of the stream, but were only able to cover the same area as in 2001. Unfortunately, data was not collected on the amount or nature of the trash collected. In 2003 the region experienced above normal rainfall in August with 4.66 inches of rain and in September with 10.12 inches (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2005). This above-average rainfall, exacerbated by Hurricane Isabel, washed tremendous amounts of trash into the stream channel, overwhelming community cleanup efforts. In addition to the class cleanup days, students were required to organize a Community Cleanup Day to work in partnership with the local community. The students were successful in collecting approximately twenty bags of trash, focusing on the same geographical area of the stream as in 2001 and 2002.
Reedy Creek Cleanup
The 2004 cleanups occurred after the region experienced a record amount of rainfall during the month of August with 16.30 inches and in September with 6.14 inches (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2005). Tropical Storm Gaston alone accounted for approximately fourteen inches on August 30. The students again participated in two cleanup sessions. Ten people from outside of the class participated in the Community Cleanup Day, mostly friends of the students. They noted large volumes of trash, attributing this to the above average rainfall washing the trash downstream. On the first day students collected twenty bags of trash (twelve of which were recyclables) and on the second day thirty-four bags (twenty of which were recyclables). While both cleanups were held in different areas of the creek, both areas again were within the lower reaches, from immediately above the city parks to the James River. Students did water testing and noted the type of aquatic and land-based wildlife found in the watershed. In 2005 the students intended to hold two cleanup sessions. The first cleanup day occurred after more than a seven-week period of drought. A record low amount of rain fell in September (.08 inches as compared to the average of 3.59 inches). Only 2.56 inches fell in August, compared to an average of 4.18 inches (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2005). On this day the area cleaned was just upstream from the city parks. Because the creek was very low, students were able to wade in to retrieve trash from areas previously unreachable except by boat. Twenty bags of trash were.collected. The second session was the Community Cleanup Day. In preparation, fliers were distributed around the community near the city parks, posted around campus, and sent to the nonprofit organizations listed on the,EPA's Adopt Your Watershed Web site. One student discussed our project at an Audubon Society meeting. These efforts resulted in nine community members (including two from the Audubon Society) along with a local reporter participating in the Community Cleanup Day. The morning's work again focused on the area immediately above the city parks. Of the twenty bags of trash collected, ten were recyclables. The afternoon's work was considerably more challenging because the group moved upstream, approaching the stream through a heavily wooded area and gaining access to a concrete culvert. The entire afternoon was spent cleaning up an area only four blocks long. Forty bags of trash were collected from this area alone, and 25 percent were recyclables. Water testing done in 2005 consisted of testing for heavy metals. During the Community Cleanup Day, some community residents approached the students inquiring if they would be back another day.The students volunteered to return the following weekend. These residents assisted with cleanup that again focused on the heavily wooded ravine, but further upstream. Showing gratitude for the students' work, the residents provided home-baked snacks. Another nineteen bags of trash including larger items were collected
in just over two hours. The total trash collected in 2005 exceeded one hundred bags (approximately one-third recyclable), plus a number of larger items. In 2006, directly attributable to unmitigated interest in the environment by two students and the course's teaching assistant, great strides were made in expanding the cleanup area and garnering the interests of the community and many other groups located outside the watershed. Six class cleanup sessions were held in addition to the Community Cleanup Day. As part of the class cleanup sessions, some students cleared paths through portions of the watershed left impassable since Hurricane Isabel's landfall in 2003. In preparation for the Community Cleanup Day, students distributed fliers to residents in the watershed and to other students at the university. Students placed a notice on one of the local television station Web sites and the daily university-wide e-mail system, contacted more nonprofits than were contacted in 2005, and discussed the project at both an Audubon Society and a Sierra Club meeting. Students also contacted many of the local schools and churches in the watershed and contacted grocers and drug stores for food and drink contributions. Despite a 24 degree temperature the morning of the Community Cleanup Day, twenty-eight people participated. Fourteen were service-learning students and the remainder came from the neighborhood. The cleanup crew ranged from'ten to sixty years of age. The focus area was the nineteen acres around Reedy Creek's major tributary (Fig. 3). An unusual camaraderie developed because of the extreme temperature and the fact that the crew had to work as a unit to carry trash from the stream in the middle of the wooded area up to the city streets. Even though the area cleaned on this day was outside of the city parks, the Park System sent a truck to pick up the trash. Trash collected totaled only ninety-
Figure 3. Students cleaning up the heavily wooded ravine (November 4, 2006). (Image courtesy of Tammy Parece.)
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nine bags, less than the 2005 total, but the cleanup area was more than double the area cleaned in 2005 and included the entire nineteen heavily wooded acres. Water testing this year was for pH, alkalinity, nitrates, and nitrites and hardness. SELF-ASSESSMENT AND LESSONS LEARNED
FOR THE FUTURE
Teaching a service-learning course requires adaptive thinking (Jarosz and Johnson-Bogart 1996). Outcomes, results, and student responses vary from one semester to the next. Identification of those aspects of the servicelearning course that demand change become evident from a serious review of the students' written reflections, their completed portfolios, end of semester presentations, informal verbal comments made by the students and the community, and observations made by the teaching assistant. From a pedagogical perspective, the project has transitioned from a fairly loose structure when itfirstbegan in 2001 to one with more details and increasingly more specific guidelines. During the first few years of the project, many students felt that additional credits should be given for requiring them to participate in an activity outside of class time. Volunteerism seemed to be absent in most of these students' academic expectations. Happily, these comments have disappeared as we have noticed that some students already have participated in volunteer projects before taking this course, and others have taken this course because of the service-learning requirement. Some students still fail to note that the course has a service-learning component when enrolling, even though the course bulletin lists it as such. During the first two days of the semester, the service-learning requirements are discussed in detail. This gives the students the opportunity early on to decide whether to continue in the course. Happily again, we have noted that increasing numbers of students enroll in the course because it is designated service-learning, a testament to the university's increasing role in community involvement. Communication has benefits and challenges for the students. Students have commented positively about the camaraderie they enjoy with each other during the cleanup process. Communication during planning sessions continues to be a challenge, especially early in the semester. Even with easy access to e-mail and cell phones, students cannot depend on their colleagues to consistently check messages. One student has suggested compiling a phone tree, and we will certainly use this suggestion to improve communication. A continuing issue is the different participation levels by group members, a problem poignantly recognized by the more active students in the project. Crump (2002) pointed this out in his article, "Learning by Doing: Implementing Community Service-based Learning." The teaching assistant keeps participation records that are factored into the final service-learning grade. 158
Tune management is a challenge for students whose lives are sometimes overcommitted. Students are required to complete fifteen to twenty hours of cleanup activity. We are learning that in order for the project to be successful we have to set deadlines throughout the semester, but especially at the beginning when students tend to be a bit sluggish about moving forward with plans. The teaching assistant for the course is instrumental in keeping the students on track. As the semester progresses, students become more involved in the time frame and see how management of their own time and respect for the time budgets of others is an essential part of the cleanup. Eliciting community participation is another ongoing challenge. Every year, students note the apparent lack of community interest, especially of those who live in the watershed. Students are exposed to the challenges of community members' schedules when they try to organize the community cleanup days. Recognizing the need for long-range planning is essential to success and, in their portfolios, students acknowledge that early planning was not necessarily something that they practiced. They acknowledge that the limited turnout at the community cleanup days is a result. To help address this issue, and in addition to placing specific dates within the syllabus for students to accomplish certain stages of the project, we established the first weekend in November as the annual community cleanup event. This relieves the major community complaint of not being provided enough advance notice of the Community Cleanup Day.Everyone in the community will know that on an annual basis the geography students will clean up Reedy Creek. Some organizations have already noted this date on their calendars. The November date for the Community Cleanup Day is important for several reasons. The date is late enough in the semester to allow students several opportunities to do their own independent cleanup of the creek, thus giving them opportunities to familiarize themselves with the stream's physical geography. Meeting and working with their fellow project members allows a cohesiveness to form prior to the community event. Students have time to notify the community and, since our project receives no monetary funding, time to contact businesses for contributions-of snacks, cleanup supplies, and other items that help make the Community Cleanup Day a success. Finally, the date is early enough in the semester so students can still meet their hour requirements before the due date of their project reports and in-class presentations. MOVING FORWARD
Future plans for our project include short- and longterm goals. In the short term, we will place emphasis on using resources in the Reedy Creek watershed to improve the cleanups. Businesses will be consulted well in advance of the community cleanup day in order to get their support for posting flyers and providing complementary food and beverages or coupons. The television station
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whose main office lies along the creek will be asked to document our work. In the long term, we want to look for sources of funding, and we want to fight the origins of the pollution. This involves developing environmental awareness among the users and residents of the watershed. Participation in a service-learning project should not be limited to the university level. According to Scales et al. (2006), the earlier students become engaged in public service, the sooner they make commitments for future activism. Public and private schools within the watershed will become community participants as we connect the preservice teachers in the class with opportunities to help students understand sources of watershed pollution. Enhanced linkages with other programs at our university, especially biology, environmental studies, and sociology, can help to encourage new ideas and fresh perspectives that can lead to more integrated projects (Kezar 2005). Integrating these other programs could yield more extensive water testing, identification and removal of invasive plants, an increased scope of community involvement, inclusion of other watersheds, and promoting sustainable environmental attitudes. We acknowledge the positive recognition accrued to our university students and, therefore, to the institution as a whole (Kellogg 2002). During the six-year span of this project, community interest and involvement have evolved from nearly nonexistent to some limited participation. Our efforts have received notice from nonprofit organizations. More importantly, despite the ephemeral nature of the specific student participants, the community now anticipates the university's perennial project. Local community residents recognize the students' efforts, offer to help, and thank the students for their efforts. By continuing to show a presence in the watershed and expanding efforts to notify and engage communities in the watershed, participation should continue to increase. With more hands to help, we hope to cover a larger area of the watershed and expand to a more collaborative and an integrated effort to address all of the watershed's environmental problems, both physical and social. In the future, increased community involvement may allow the student group to step aside and give the community full responsibility for protecting Reedy Creek. The ultimate evolution of any service-learning project comes when other universities mimic our efforts and partner with their communities to address the cleanup needs of their nearby watersheds, an effort for which we hope this article will provide some guidance. Our ongoing success with this project is attributable to several factors that may provide incentives for more of our colleagues to attach a service-learning component to their existing classes. Certainly world regions courses are ubiquitous components of most undergraduate geography major programs. There is merit for integrating action with
course content. Watersheds are easy to locate within proximity of most university borders. Student energy, community willingness, and a well-trained undergraduate teaching assistant more than compensate for limited funding. The inclusion of a watershed cleanup helps to make a geography course a leader in bringing a "green curriculum" to the university (Haigh 2005). The most important long-term goal of a service-learning project is to instill in the students a sense of citizenship and ownership in alleviating social problems. When government funds are limited, volunteers can step in to fill a valuable role in civil society. In our project, students' efforts to clean up an urban watershed have helped to promote the regeneration of the health of the Chesapeake
Bay.
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TITLE: Reedy Creek Cleanup: The Evolution of a University Geography Service-Learning Project SOURCE: J Geogr 106 no4 Jl/Ag 2007 The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it is reproduced with permission. Further reproduction of this article in violation of the copyright is prohibited. To contact the publisher: http://www.ncge.org/index.html
