Miami-Dade County is home to more than 2.1 million people. Ethnic diversity is extensive, with a population that is 52% Hispanic, 34% African American, 13% White, and 1% American Indian/Asian/Other. As with any community of this complexity, there are significant environmental health issues of concern to the community and government. The Miami-Dade County Public School System is the fourth largest district in the country with more than 350,000 students, more than 93,000 of which are in grades 9-12. There is significant need within the public high school system to involve students with research scientists and members of the community in an interdisciplinary approach to learning about local environmental health science issues. The proposed AMBIENT Project (Atmospheric and Marine-Based Interdisciplinary ENvironmental Health Science Training) is a systemic approach to environmental health science education. Focused around the four environmental themes of air, water, soil and food, a health-science problem-based learning approach will be delivered by trained teachers to the ethnically diverse population of high school students in Miami-Dade County. The teachers will work together to enhance understanding of environmental and ethical issues through a hands-on summer workshop with research scientists from the University of Miami, Florida International University, and County Department of Health. Best practices from existing environmental curriculum materials will be assembled for use in the training. An important emphasis of the project will be to provide team teaching strategies for incorporating interdisciplinary activities into the large classes of more than 35 students at the high schools. The project is modeled after three highly successful environmental teacher training models, GLOBE, INSTAR, and the SECME Summer Institutes, and draws the best from each. Classroom activities and assessment tools will be incorporated by the Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling, Jesuit University, into a problem-based learning web site similar to the NASA """"""""Exploring the Environment"""""""" series. The Brown University Education Alliance will provide formative and summative assessment of the project. This project addresses the need defined by Priority 8.2 of Healthy People 2000: Educational and Community-Based Programs, which is to increase high school completion rates to 90 percent, especially with regard to Hispanic and Black American students.
