ENSC/ENGL 310, or The Ecological Imagination, is an upper-level joint English and Environmental Science class offered at Longwood University. To complete my general education (Civitae) courses, I took this class to encourage thought about an entirely new area of study; environmental science. The class discussed how Environmental Science is represented in literature through reading two books, The Island of Missing Trees and Living Downstream: A Memoir. In some ways, this class was incredibly sad, as so much of it drew on these two books. In short, carcinogenic chemicals are everywhere, and cancer rates have steadily increased since WWII. Worst of all, ordinary people can only do something about it with widespread intervention in American company waste outputs.

As part of this class, I conducted research on a method of environmental conservation and discussed how I would present this information to a non-educated audience. My results are viewable in the embedded PDF below.

This class was incredibly insightful for me. Despite my best efforts, I previously learned very little about environmental issues. I also did not realize the breadth of knowledge that combines environmental science and writing. As a result of this class, I now know more than ever about this vast and storied field of knowledge. I can pull from this class in several ways as a social worker. However, chief among them is that now, I know that many fields can connect in numerous ways; for example, English and Environmental Science. This could aid in my conducting research.