Education at PICEH

No program captures the essence of PICEH’s multi-disciplinary approach to children’s environmental heath as does the Education Program. Unlike Outreach Programs that are focused on public education, the Education Program at PICEH is focused on formal educational initiatives. By working with educators from secondary schools and at Kutztown University, PICEH is working on ways to encourage the incorporation of children’s environmental health issues in the classroom. Whether it be the history of pollution in the United States, the politics behind environmental regulations, using environmental data in correlation analysis, or offering opportunities in health and environmental science programs, PICEH is working with educators to help them prepare tomorrow’s leaders.

At the university level, the Advanced Educational Advisory Board (“AEAB”) operates within the educational program and is responsible for the incorporation of educational initiatives at Kutztown University. One of the AEAB’s programs is the PICEH-AEAB Grant Program. This innovative grant program encourages faculty to incorporate children’s environmental health topics into courses and to support them at least partially for the time it takes to develop teaching modules that will be used in their courses and that can then be shared with other faculty. It is the hope of AEAB that the successful modules can then be shared with other educators throughout the nation and serve as a model for children’s environmental health programs.

Another opportunity within the Education Program is the Educational Incentive Opportunity Grant Program (“EIO Grants”) that PICEH provides to secondary schools within Berks County to help them incorporate children’s environmental health topics within the classroom. These innovative programs are created by local teachers and help them with their curriculum.

At PICEH we realize that children’s environmental health issues are multi-faceted and, if we are truly going to address them, it will require professionals from many diverse backgrounds. By working with educators from multiple disciplines, we can be assured that our mission to advance the understanding of children’s environmental health will be fruitful for generations to come.