Abby Close (C'97) and Johnathan Seeg (WH'97) are of the opposite sex and hail from opposite sides of the country. One grew up in a large West Coast metropolis, the other in a small New England coastal town. One was an activist, the other a Boy Scout. From these divergent paths, both acquired a common love of nature and the environment.

That love has led the two Penn undergraduates to collaborate on a project that is making a difference in the environment of one West Philadelphia community. And that project has won them national recognition.

The project involves students and teachers in the environmental-education program at the Shaw Middle School in Kingsessing. Working with Penn students, the Shaw students have collected much valuable data on environmental conditions in their neighborhood, data that are then used at Shaw and at Penn. In the process, the Shaw students have also learned math, science and writing skills, while gaining new appreciation for the world around them.

For both Close and Seeg, working at Shaw was a logical next step in their efforts to promote environmental awareness and civic involvement.

Close started doing community service as a sixth-grader in Los Angeles. "The environment has always been my focus," she said of her work in high school, but it was summer of junior year, when she helped build a medical center while studying the ecology of the Costa Rican rain forest, when "the transition began from environmental work as something I was just interested in to something I wanted to do as my life's work and study."

Seeg's interest in both the environment and community service came from his involvement in the Boy Scouts in his hometown of Marshfield, Mass. "A lot of scouting revolves around outdoor experiences such as hiking," he said. And, through activities such as serving meals at soup kitchens and clearing hiking trails, "scouting also prepared me for civic work," he added.

The opportunity for Close and Seeg to pursue their interests came in the fall of 1994, when they were enrolled in a class on university-community relations taught by emeritus history professor Lee Benson and Center for Community Partnerships Director Ira Harkavy. One of the course's main ideas is that universities can play a role in improving the quality of education in urban public schools, and that by engaging in school-based programs, college students can help this effort while enhancing their own studies.

Close and Seeg were looking for ways to apply these ideas when they heard that two teachers at Shaw Middle School had approached Penn for help in setting up an environmental-education program for Shaw eighth-graders. Close, Seeg and six Penn Environmental Group volunteers set up a program that combined hands-on research with discussions, field trips, walks around the neighborhood and guest speakers. Close said: "Our goal was to make a difference"--to help transform the environment around Shaw--by "making the students agents of change."

One of the ways Close and Seeg pursued this goal was by having the students do research on lead contamination in their neighborhood. The eighth-graders collected soil, paint and dust samples from their homes and vacant lots, which were then analyzed by Penn students enrolled in geology professor Robert Giegengack's class on the urban environment of West Philadelphia. The Shaw students then took the results and plotted them on a map that showed lead concentration levels throughout the neighborhood.

The Penn and Shaw students then used the results to produce materials showing steps families can take to reduce the risk of lead poisoning. Close noted that the project helped the students "make educated choices and understand, for instance, why they should let the water run before drinking any."

The lead project illustrates many of the program's goals. The middle-school students learn useful skills, while increasing their awareness of their environment and providing valuable research material for the college students involved. The program also provides something else, according to Seeg: "Beyond the fact that the program makes learning more active and enjoyable for both the kids and the undergraduates, the most-important thing is that it allows friendships to form between the students at Shaw and at Penn."

The program has been well-received at Shaw. In its second year, it has expanded from the original two eighth-grade classes to eight classes in all three grades, and from eight Penn students to over 50.

The program's success has also brought Close and Seeg national attention. Last spring, the two students presented a paper on their work at the Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment, held in Boston and sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Association (IEA). And this year, the pair jointly received one of five Howard R. Swearer Humanitarian Awards from Campus Compact, a national organization that promotes collegiate community service.

Both honors were unprecedented in their own way. Seeg explained that they submitted their paper to the IEA by accident: "We didn't know the conference wasn't for undergraduates," he said. Their paper was anonymously reviewed by a professor of education, who recommended it for acceptance, and "it was only after acceptance that [the IEA] found out." After the initial shock passed, the IEA allowed them to present the paper at the conference.

As for the Swearer Award, Close and Seeg are the first students in the award's 10-year history to receive the prize jointly. Campus Compact Director Nancy C. Rhodes said, "What made Abby Close and Johnathan Seeg so outstanding was their ability to put into practice the theories they learned in the classroom. They saw an opportunity to involve middle-school students in their neighborhoods, working on environmental projects that incorporated hands-on learning while addressing real needs in the community."

The award includes a check for $1,500, which will be used to pay for field trips, scientific equipment and tools to maintain a community garden and trees on the Shaw grounds, funded in part by a grant made to the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Urban Resources Partnership program.

Seeg feels that with the strong ties to both the Penn and Shaw communities, the program will successfully survive its creators. "Undergraduates are usually here for four years," he said. "What the community worries about is that when the students who start it leave, the program will die. In our case, we were really fortunate that the Shaw teachers came to Penn to ask for support" in establishing the program.

Return to Compass Features for April 23, 1996