This course was taken as my last Civitae Perspectives course. Prior to this course, I had only taken one biology class since freshman year of high school and it was geared towards elementary education. While I was excited and interested, I was very nervous about the content.

This class exceeded my expectations and was not so science based that I could not keep up. The class was very historically based and the science was simplified and explained when necessary. I found this class to be a fun challenge and a good break from my typical courses. The way the material was presented was fun and engaging and often lead me to doing my own research on murder mysteries and toxicology reports.

For the final project in this course, we were all asked to complete a research paper on a local site that has been deemed “toxic” at some point. I chose a site in Richmond, which is close to home. I found this to be meaningful because I could see what was looming so close to my home, but I could also see into the politics, science, and economy of properties.

The Risk Assessment report can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ebOKcYX8fMdqjcbKQmW_fI4PtT4_KT2Yat24iBZV8Ag/edit?usp=sharing