A new first-year seminar course takes an Interdisciplinary approach to engaging students with issues of environmental and social justice through an exploration of disused areas of the New York City waterfront.

This course blends history, environmental science, fiction, and visual art to create a multi-pronged investigation into past and present conditions resulting from an evolving city’s treatment of its coastal areas. New York City’s vast waterfront is central to understanding changing attitudes towards the environment, industry, health, wealth and poverty.

As a text, this course uses the recently published, Silent Beaches, Untold Stories: New York City’s Forgotten Waterfront (Elizabeth Albert. Damiani. September, 2016). Following the structure of the book, the course focuses on ten lesser-known or neglected urban coastal sites. Students conduct field research and partner with community remediation organizations as a basis for scientific and historical research as well as creative written and visual responses. The course intends to engage students from various majors with the littoral environment as central to all aspects of past and present urban life.

During this presentation I will give an overview of two of the coastal areas featured in the text, describe the course structure, and share selected student responses. I will also discuss best practices for forging a lasting understanding of the inter-relationship between human existence and the surrounding environment, including practical shifts in lifestyle towards greater sustainability and environmental well-being.

https://stjohns.digication.com/dny_silent_beaches_untold_stories_spring_2017/Welcome/published