Teaching & Outreach Resources for Climate & Health (TORCH)
The TORCH project (Teaching and Outreach Resources for Climate and Health) brings together »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ faculty and outside partners who would not ordinarily work together to alleviate the national shortage in teaching tools that integrate climate science into life science and health science courses.
Climate change is often thought of at planetary and ecological scales. However, it is now widely recognized that living cells, organisms, and populations are highly sensitive to its effects. Preparing students to mitigate and reverse climate-related health risks will require a curriculum that integrates scales, from molecular, cellular, and organismal to population-level, ecological, and planetary.
The planned educational products will emphasize hands-on, student-centered learning, including data-based case studies, laboratory modules, immersive simulation-style lessons, problem-based learning exercises, and health science communication workshops. Student research assistants will play a prominent role in co-creating these instructional materials.
TORCH is a collaboration between faculty and staff at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõand Notre Dame
University of Maryland, as well as advisors from the Smithsonian Educational Research
Center, One Health Lessons, University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Liverpool
School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
The TORCH team
Verónica A. Segarra
Associate Professor and the Maryland E-Nnovation Endowed Chair in Biological Sciences
and Chemistry, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Principal Investigator and Faculty Lead
Verónica A. Segarra is a cell biologist and biochemist at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ who enjoys and has a long history of success in the collaborative design of teaching and outreach modules. She leverages her experience leading large collaborative grants and projects to serve as one of the principal investigators for TORCH.
Jonathan Lawton
Assistant Professor of Public Health, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Co-Principal Investigator and Faculty Lead
Jonathan G. Lawton is an epidemiologist and public health expert at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ who has interests in global health, infectious diseases, including malaria and HIV, and vaccine development. He leverages his diverse training in population science, genetics, and statistics to help integrate multiple scales and disciplines for TORCH deliverables. He also provides administrative support as the co-principal investigator for this project.
Aryana Arsham
Assistant Professor of Data Science, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Faculty Lead
Aryana Arsham is a statistician and data scientist at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College. Her research interests include health data analysis and computational statistics. She draws on her background in statistics to conduct longitudinal analyses of health outcomes associated with climate change, to support the quantitative aspects of all TORCH products, and to mentor students engaged in the work.
Jennifer E. Kerr
Associate Professor of Biology, and Galotto Endowed Chair in the Biological Sciences,
Notre Dame University of Maryland
TORCH Role: Faculty Lead
Jennifer Kerr is a microbiologist and bioinformatics education expert. Her work combines microbiology with practical applications for improving health. She draws on recent work from 1) her NIH funded (1UE5HG013799-01) project developing undergraduate genomic data science curricula, 2) the BioDIGS soil microbiome, environment and health project and 3) her research in microbial pathogenesis to develop pedagogical material connecting microbial and infectious disease dynamics and climate change.
Christopher Torres
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Faculty Contributor
Christopher Torres is an environmental politics and policy scholar at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ who has experience investigating how political narratives and bureaucratic tensions shape opportunities for and challenges to environmental policy change. He leverages this experience to conduct comparative analyses of the political and administrative policy dimensions for TORCH products.
Jamie Batts
Educational Developer, Center for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Educational Specialist
Jamie Batts is an educational developer at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ’s Center for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching (CAST) with extensive instructor experience teaching biology courses that include human anatomy and physiology. She will use her expertise to coordinate cross-disciplinary integration, support pedagogical alignment with learning goals, and assist with adapting products for community outreach.
Jennifer Bess
Associate Professor of Peace Studies and Public Health, »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ College
TORCH Role: Faculty Contributor
Jennifer Bess is a Native American studies historian and professor of peace studies and public health at »ÆÉ«Èí¼þ¶¶Òõ. She leverages her experience investigating the intersections among agriculture, foodways, and ecology through Indigenous, Public Health, and Global Health lenses to support the human and planetary dimensions of TORCH.
Advisory board
- Allison Cawood, Director of Public Engagement, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center
- Simone Soso, Director of Development, Challenger Center; Grant and Research Consultant, STEM Futures Consulting; Executive Board Member (Treasurer), One Health Lessons
- Megan Kowalcyk, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine
- Andrea Buchwald, Senior Lecturer, Clinical Science, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
- Karen Via, Maryland Science Center
- Lisa Sheifele, Baltimore Underground Science Space
Parnership opportunities
Interested in collaborating on TORCH hands-on lessons, labs, or workshops? We welcome
partnerships with Baltimore area educators and community members. Kindly contact Dr.
Segarra (veronica.segarra@goucher.edu) or Dr. Lawton (jonathan.lawton@goucher.edu) introducing yourself and your interests!
Anticipated products
The following student-centered products will provide a toolkit for teaching integrated
climate change and human health. Each product represents a different pedagogical strategy,
incorporating multiple disciplines at the intersection of climate change. The products
will initially be geared toward undergraduates and then differentiated for science
outreach.
Comparative case study
This comparative case study highlights the benefits of oyster conservation to human
health and how policy and molecular sciences are being used in different countries
like the USA (Chesapeake Bay) and Costa Rica (Puntarenas) to inform conservation and
economic efforts. This case study will bring together faculty with expertise in indigenous
history and the revival of ancient clam gardens (Bess), politics and governmental
policy (Torres), biodiversity and molecular sciences (Segarra; Lead), microbiology
and data science (Kerr), and public/population health (Lawton). The faculty are requesting
funds (see budget section) to recruit two undergraduates to help with the generation
of the case study and its adaptation for outreach. This case study will be tested
and iterated in CPE (Segarra), ICA (Segarra, Torres), and Microbiology (Kerr) courses
before we package it for peer review/publication and outreach.
Data-driven case study
This data-driven case study focuses on the climate effects of mosquito and tick-borne
disease vectors (Kerr; Lead). The work will examine shifts in the seasonality and
geographic distribution of diseases such as dengue, Zika, malaria, and Lyme disease
using public databases. Through data analysis and interpretation, the project will
strengthen undergraduate skills in quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and
public health literacy (Lawton). The resulting case study will be designed for classroom
implementation (pilot testing in an undergraduate microbiology class; Kerr), providing
an interdisciplinary learning tool that links climate science, vector biology, and
human health.
Immersive simulation & problem-based learning modules
These immersive simulation and problem-based learning modules are grounded in the
One Health framework emphasizing the complex connections among environmental, animal,
and human health (Lawton; Lead). Through role-playing scenarios, students will assume
diverse stakeholder perspectives on climate-related health challenges, building interdisciplinary
understanding and a clear appreciation of cause and effect across scales. Two undergraduate
research assistants will help develop this project component. Complementary problem-based
learning activities will provide hands-on experience with the foundations of study
design, data collection, and quantitative analysis (Arsham) while grappling with real-world
challenges such as climate change, zoonotic diseases, and agricultural development.
Together, these experiential approaches are designed to foster climate health education
that is interdisciplinary, practical, and durable.
Inquiry-based laboratory module
This inquiry-based laboratory module uses heterologously purified Malate Dehydrogenase,
and live yeast models to examine the changes in (1) protein sequence and function,
(2) protein localization and (3) cell shape as a function of temperature (Segarra;
Lead). The module will connect temperature-related metabolic disruption to human cardiovascular
and respiratory health (Batts).
Problem-based learning module
This problem-based learning module examines greenhouse gas emissions as a key driver
of climate change and its contributions to adverse health effects (Arsham; Lead).
This product will include connections to prevalent respiratory and cardiovascular
diseases affecting human populations (Batts, Lawton). In this product, we examine
how cause-specific mortality is associated with emissions trends over time. The model
will be longitudinal and country- and year-specific. The data will be obtained by
combining two prominent publicly available datasets: the WHO Mortality Database and the Our World in Data Greenhouse gas emissions dataset. In addition to the timeliness and importance of modeling this phenomenon,
the project is designed to engage students in learning about these complex, time-dependent
models. Moreover, students will gain experience in programming and interpreting findings
from these highly relevant datasets.
Communication workshop
The communication workshop will focus on topics related to climate health (Lawton;
Lead). This workshop will provide students with practical strategies, templates, and
applied exercises for communicating complex scientific data across scales and disciplines,
from molecules to populations to the planet. The workshop will emphasize translating
breakthroughs from the biochemistry laboratory (Segarra) and the environmental sciences
to improve climate-related health conditions (Batts), as well as how these discoveries
are further transformed into preventive public health action. The curriculum will
prioritize communication across diverse non-scientific audiences, including policymakers,
community leaders, and the public.
Contact
For more information, email Jonathan Lawton (jonathan.lawton@goucher.edu) or Verónica Segarra (veronica.segarra@goucher.edu).