March 14th, 2020

Learning and Teaching About Environmental Justice and the Right to Clean Water: From Flint to the Dakota Access Pipeline

By Cleary Vaughan-Lee and Sara Dorman

Vaughan-Lee & Dorman JSE March 2020 Water and Climate Issue PDF

Link to JSE March 2020 Water and Climate Issue Table of Contents

Abstract: The Flint water crisis, considered one of the worst public health crises of our time, continues to have devastating and irreversible impacts for residents six years in the making, from 2014 to present. The understanding and awareness of this public health crisis is vital in order to comprehend the impacts of poor urban management and the human right to clean water in the nation’s marginalized and poor communities. This article will document the context of the Flint water crisis and the Dakota Access Pipeline using photography as an immersive storytelling medium to humanize the issue. Additional stories, including those of Indigenous youth water activist Autumn Peltier and Flint youth activist Mari Copeny, document innovative ways in which we can contribute to a more informed society. Educators provide various ways to integrate the themes of environmental justice, water accessibility, sustainability, and climate change across multiple subject areas.

Keywords: Flint, Michigan; human right to water; drinking water; public health; water crisis; environmental justice; photography

 

“Due regard for the health of the inhabitants not only means that their place of abode should be in healthy locality and should have a healthy exposure: it also means that they should have the use of good water. This is a matter which ought not to be treated lightly. The elements we use most and oftenest for the support of our bodies contribute most to their health; and water and air have both an effect of this nature. It should therefore be laid down, in all prudently conducted states, that if all the streams are not equally wholesome, and the supply of wholesome streams is inadequate, the drinking water ought to be separated from the water used for other purposes.”                                

 —Aristotle (Marks, 2001, p. 129)

At this crucial junction in our history, during severe climate and ecological breakdown, what are the ways we can challenge students to learn and be aware of the environmental injustices impacting marginalized communities? Do we have a human right to clean water?

These are important questions for students. The simple act of bearing witness to our world through immersive storytelling using photography provides powerful opportunities for students to learn and reflect on others’ experiences as well as their own. These questions are explored in “The Fall of Flint,” a photo essay by photographer Matt Black, which captures the Flint water crisis and the decline of one of America’s great manufacturing cities. Built on the job market of the automotive industry, Flint, Michigan, approximately 70 miles northwest of Detroit, is a prime example of the compounding effects of unemployment, poor housing, poverty, and a medium-sized city’s struggle to be heard. The photographs, captions, and photographer’s statement capture these components as well as highlight the voices of Flint residents. A companion lesson plan for middle school and high school classrooms, “Do We Have a Right to Clean Water?,” provides ways to raise awareness about the Flint water crisis by putting Flint on the map for students. Students investigate the impacts of the Flint water crisis through Black’s storytelling and consider how to investigate and address water sustainability and the role of civic responsibility during a human rights crisis.

Figure 1. USA. Flint, Michigan. 2016. The Flint River, downtown.
© Matt Black/Magnum Photos.

Specific stories—including those of Indigenous Dakota Access Pipeline protestors and youth activists Mari Copeny and Autumn Peltier—document individual and community experiences to climate change, access to clean water, and the environmental injustices which have resulted due to poor decision making and abuse of power. Connections made through storytelling impact learners across all ages, allowing for increased awareness, empathy, and action towards sustainable solutions.

Putting the Flint Water Crisis in Context

In April 2014, in order to save money, interim managers for the state of Michigan made the decision to switch the source of Flint, Michigan’s drinking water from Lake Huron, treated through the Detroit Water Department, to the Flint River. This key decision, along with the failure to adequately treat that water or to respond to public concerns about water safety, led to one of the worst public health crises of our time.

“This is the story of the most important and emblematic environmental and public health disaster of this young century. More bluntly, it is the story of a government poisoning its own citizens, and then lying about it. It is a story about what happens when the very people responsible for keeping us safe care more about money and power than they care about us, or our children,” writes Mona Hannah-Attisha, scientist, public health advocate, and local pediatrician (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, pp. 12-13). Due to her efforts, along with other public health advocates, Flint has switched back to its historical water source. Irreversible damage has been done to the city’s residents due to the large quantities of lead which have leached into the drinking water. Flint officially entered a state of emergency in January of 2016, which prompted federal funding to supply residents with filters and bottled water for drinking and bathing.

Two years into the crisis, twelve people died from Legionnaires’ Disease in Genesee County in Flint, most likely caused by bacteria from the Flint River (“Legionnaires’ Disease,” 2016). Other health issues connected to drinking and bathing in the water included painful rashes, hair loss, and lead poisoning, which can cause irreversible brain damage, especially for children and unborn fetuses.

Flint, a primarily blue-collar industrial city and home to General Motors (GM), had experienced a series of economic downturns since the 1950s when GM closed seven of their industrial plants. By 2011, Flint was on the brink of bankruptcy (Smith, 2017). Instead of continuing to purchase water from Detroit, the city embarked on an ambitious plan to build their own pipeline to Lake Huron (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, p. 29). Knowing that this would take years to complete, the city decided to switch its water supply to the Flint River and process it at the old Flint Water Plant where they failed to properly treat the water with anti-corrosives (Renwick, 2019). This act resulted in dangerously high levels of lead, which leached into the water from the old lead pipe system (Smith, 2017). Almost immediately, residents witnessed problems with the new water, including foul-smelling odors and discoloration; the water turned cloudy and brown. Residents also experienced physical symptoms, such as headaches and rashes, from bathing in the water. Instead of taking the concerns seriously, city officials ignored residents and insisted the water was fine (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, pp. 29-30).

An independent team of researchers from Virginia Tech University tested the water (Smith, 2016). Their lab results found that the water contained 104 parts per billion for lead while the maximum allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is 15 parts per billion. As the residents of Flint dealt with the effects of lead poisoning, they also faced another related crisis, a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease. At least 90 people became infected and eventually 12 died.

Eighteen months later, in October 2015, the city switched back to the Detroit water supply but the damage had already been done; some irreversibly for the youngest and most vulnerable of the community (Hill, 2016, p. 163). The independently conducted Virginia Tech study concluded that as many as 8,000 children under the age of six were exposed to lead poisoning (Smith, 2017). There are no safe levels of lead exposure, “It’s a powerful, well-studied neurotoxin that disrupts brain development. There is truly no safe level…Lead exposure is known as a silent epidemic because there are no immediate signs of it…Even at lower, single-digit levels, the damage is irreversible…Lead is even suspected to have an epigenetic or multigenerational impact by changing a child’s DNA. It’s really science-fiction comic-book stuff, like the X-Men, except the victims aren’t getting superpowers. Their powers are being taken away” (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, pp. 40-42). Lead poisoning can lead to “…developmental delays, cognitive impairment–literally, a drop in IQ–as well as memory issues, attention and mood disorders, and aggressive behavior” (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, pp. 41-42).

In 2020, six years later, the impacts of the Flint water crisis continue to impact the city and its residents. From the corrosion of pipes to the broken trust in the city’s politicians, the residents are dealing with the aftermath of politically motivated decisions which are currently still compromising their health and well-being. Flint is also facing an educational crisis with rising numbers of children with permanent learning disabilities in need of extra services and support due to the effects of lead poisoning (Green, 2019). The percentage of children qualifying for special needs services has almost doubled since the lead crisis began (Green, 2019). As the special education rate increased by a third, the Michigan Education Department cut funding and enacted a salary freeze.

According to the state of Michigan, at the end of 2019, the water in Flint now meets federal standards. Levels of lead and copper are down and “Flint’s water continues to test the same as or better than similar cities across the state and country” (“Taking Action on Flint Water,” n.d.).

However, residents are wary. After all, in 2014 and 2015, officials also had insisted the water was safe, brushing aside the concerns of residents. Bottled water remains in high demand and residents are suspicious about the city’s lead pipes and its decaying water infrastructure (Smith, Bosman, & Davey, 2019).

Classroom Connections: Storytelling and The Flint Water Crisis

Immersive storytelling, told through photography, has the ability to introduce a human element that is not commonly represented in news articles or textbooks. Using professional photography in the classroom provides an interdisciplinary approach to learning and can be utilized as a pedagogical tool to make cross-cultural connections, increase knowledge of global issues, build social and emotional awareness, and foster empathy.

“Any powerful work of art invades our being and changes it forever…teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our self-interest” (Armstrong, 2005, pp. 148-149). The work of photographer Matt Black exemplifies how art, in the form of photography, provides opportunities to challenge students’ perspectives and worldviews. He has been covering poverty for the last two decades. A native to California’s Central Valley, Black was Time Magazine’s 2014 Instagram Photographer of the Year and has been documenting poverty and the nation’s poor for the past two decades. Poverty, he describes, isn’t just an economic question. “It’s a question of power: Who gets their needs met, which communities get their needs met and which communities don’t” (Simon, 2018).

Black traveled over 100,00 miles across 46 U.S. states for a project titled “Geography of Poverty” (Steber & Black, 2019). He visited the city of Flint before the crisis was national news. “I connected with the place in terms of the history, the really tremendous crash,” Black said. “What happens when you lose 80,000 jobs in one shot” (LaMotte, 2016)? In his photo essay “The Fall of Flint,” Black captured the city of Flint and its residents in 2014 as they persevered through the water crisis. Flint native Deborah Hayman is photographed in the photo essay in a close-up black and white portrait. “You know what my biggest fear is?” asked Hayman.“That people are going to forget about us.”

Photography is a relatable medium for students. It contains a unique power to engage students emotionally and to compel creativity and problem solving. Combined with current events, integrating professional photography into the classroom can be used as an investigative news source. In Black’s photo essay, Flint residents are featured, as well as the city. Each photo’s caption communicates information about the city; statistical information includes that, in 2016, the population of Flint, which was once over 200,000, has dwindled to half its size; and, more than 41 percent live below the poverty line. In this text, Flint residents share information about their health and well-being, which has significantly declined. Many residents explain that they have experienced skin rashes from bathing in the water and have had complications due to Legionnaires’ disease. Photography allows students to witness the Flint water crisis through learning and hearing individual accounts and experiences.

For the past eight years, Jeremey Wilder has incorporated the unfolding of the Flint water crisis into his classroom discussions in real time. Wilder teaches AP environmental science at Grand Haven High School, 154 miles west of Flint on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Wilder uses the Global Oneness Project’s photo essay “The Fall of Flint” as a precursor to address environmental justice issues and to discuss what factors precipitate systemic change.

The companion curriculum, “Do We Have a Right to Clean Water?” aims to expose students to the Flint water crisis through the themes of environmental justice, the consequences of development, and our human connection to the environment. The lesson’s key idea states that “the crisis calls into question citizens’ rights to clean water and how our natural resources are allocated across racial and income lines.”

To set the stage for students, the lesson begins stating that, in 2010, the United Nations declared that clean drinking water is a human right (“The Human Right to Water,” n.d.). Students are asked in subsequent questions if they have personally experienced any kind of water crisis, from drinking toxic water, flooding, or drought. Wilder challenges his students to make connections throughout students’ home state of Michigan. He states, “We address the issue of primacy over the Clean Water Act between the State of Michigan and the Federal EPA. We also discuss Flint in terms of environmental justice and compare Flint to other documented areas within Michigan that have since been shown to have high rates of lead. In all cases lead issues align with lower income for both cities and specific neighborhoods.”

Using the photographs as evidence, students are challenged to respond to questions and harness the use of their observational skills. Some questions include the following:

  • As described in the images and captions, make a list of the health impacts residents are facing caused by Flint’s polluted water.
  • Given the evidence from the photographs, the photo captions, and the photographer’s statement, who is held responsible for the Flint water crisis and its impacts on residents?
  • Black says photography is “separate from politics” (“Lessons in the Field,” n.d.). Yet, his photographs serve to raise awareness about the water crisis in Flint and compel government accountability. Government employees in Michigan—including Governor Rick Snyder—are under investigation for their role in the crisis. Which photographs and captions make the strongest case regarding government accountability, or responsibility, for the water crisis. Why?

Environmental justice, a term defined within the lesson, is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies” (“Environmental Justice,” n.d.).

“The link between poverty and high exposure rates to contaminants and pollutants is plain to see for my students based on the Flint water crisis. We use the term environmental justice rather than social justice because it incorporates the idea that ecosystem services are available disproportionately for the wealthy and most often to White members of our society,” said Wilder. He also has shown “NOVA: Poisoned Water” (season 44 episode 10) to his students. “The city was in a crisis of poverty before the water issues surfaced. We have many such cities across the nation and adding one more woe to Flint’s situation wasn’t enough to prompt national outrage or despair. The fact that children have been irreparably harmed by damage from lead poisoning and that the entire nation was not outraged by our government’s failure to protect them speaks volumes for the importance of strong environmental regulations, like the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. I intend to show the newest documentary “Frontline: Flint’s Deadly Water” (Season 19, Episode 12) along with the Black’s photo essay to introduce water pollution issues with my students this year.”

Students are challenged to apply the meaning of environmental justice to what they understand and observe from the visual and written components presented in Black’s photo essay. As a writing activity, students select one photograph, and using the components of the photo essay, they make their case in a short essay, and describe how the depicted scene illustrates environmental justice.

As a Flint native and a current Michigan resident living in Saline, high school English language arts teacher Matt Hamilton said that he was surprised to hear that the Flint water crisis is not as well known around the country. There are similar water issues in Detroit, Highland Park, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and in Newark where the situation escalated in October 2019 after tests led to the distribution of the same water faucet filters residents used in Flint (Corasaniti, 2019). Residents were forced to use bottled water. New Jersey senator Cory Booker, who was also mayor of the city between 2006 and 2013, said that the Newark water emergency represented a “national crisis of lead-contaminated water disproportionately hit [ting] poor black and brown communities like my own” (Aratani, 2019).

These are communities, said Hamilton, that are affected by environmental racism. “I’m hopeful,” said Hamilton, “that more attention around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other global education initiatives will lead to increased knowledge and care around water because we will be reminded that water is such a core issue that is part of many larger global crises. Learning about values and social issues are key to developing frameworks for empathy and care in all industries and fields, so that as educators we impact students’ ability to enact socially-just practices and mindsets wherever they go.”

Classroom Connections: Storytelling and The Dakota Access Pipeline

Mni Wiconi: Water is Life

According to sociologist Dr. Beverly Wright, CEO of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice at Dillard University,“[Communities of color] are in double jeopardy” from the climate crisis” (Rysavy & Floyd, n.d.). This also includes Indigenous communities. “Native rights are primarily place-based rights, based on their longtime occupation of Indigenous territories…The loss of culturally important species on which traditional knowledge depends will make it more difficult for elders to practice and pass their knowledge on to future generations” (Rysavy & Floyd, n.d.).

The controversial construction, and now operational Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), crosses the ancestral homelands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Tribe, which operates as a sovereign nation, passed a resolution, stating that “the Dakota Access Pipeline poses a serious risk to the very survival of our Tribe and…would destroy valuable cultural resources” (“Treaties Still Matter,” n.d.).

The pipeline travels under hundreds of waterways on its 1,172-mile route through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. Ultimately, the protests failed to stop the pipeline, and in June 2017, oil began to flow (Aisch & Lai, 2016).

Photographer Camille Seaman’s photo essay “We Are Still Here” is part of a long-term project “We Are Still Here—All My Relations: A Native American Portrait Project.” The project aims to document Native American tribes throughout the United States. Many of the photographs in the photo essay were taken at the Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannonball, North Dakota, near the Missouri River, one of the places of protest against the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline (DAPL). At the Oceti Sakowin camp, as well as other camps on and around the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, Indigenous peoples from all over the world came together as “water protectors” in an effort to halt construction of the pipeline.

In the companion lesson plan, “Today’s Native America,” students examine the concerns from Native Americans, through Seaman’s photographs and captions, about environmental and human rights issues which are impacting their own tribal communities and the future of the country.

Through the themes of identity, cultural displacement, and resilience, students explore discussion questions which aim to dispel the misconceptions and stereotypes of Native Americans being people of the past. Questions also highlight questions about DAPL and one of the main reasons for the protests, which is to protect the drinking water of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe from an oil spill; the tribe’s reservation is downstream from where the pipeline crosses the Missouri River. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said, “In honor of our future generations, we fight this pipeline to protect our water, our sacred places, and all living beings.” Students are asked to respond to the following discussion question: Do you think this perspective might challenge people to shift their behavior from consumerism to reverence and respect for the Earth? Why or why not?

Seaman described her reasons for going to Standing Rock. “What was pulling me to Standing Rock was this perfect accumulation of symptoms. What’s going on there crosses over so many things that are in our discussions of income inequality, immigration, climate issues, environment, racial justice, women’s health issues…” (Campbell, 2016). Storytellers can bridge divides and challenge students to make connections across multiple issues.

Youth Activism and Sustainable Water Resilience

“People are saying we have to make our communities more climate-resilient, but it has to be a resilience that cuts across race, class, and geography.”                     

                                                             —Dr. Robert D. Bullard (Rysavy & Floyd, n.d.)

In what ways can youth and climate crisis activists advocate for sustainable water resilience? Youth climate activists are playing a significant role in addressing and advocating for change around the world. Both the Flint water crisis and the DAPL protests received national attention; when Flint residents complained to local and state agencies with concerns about water quality, nothing was done to address the issue. What might be a course of action for citizens when city or state officials do not act responsibly to assist the community?

One Flint resident, 12-year-old activist Mari Copeny, also known as “Little Miss Flint,” wrote to President Obama at the height of the crisis (Copeny, 2019). Obama responded to Copeny with a visit to Flint and through the Environmental Protection Agency, awarded Michigan $100 million to allocate towards efforts to upgrade Flint’s drinking water system. Copeny started a “Dear Flint Kids” letter campaign, which has distributed thousands of letters into the hands of Flint kids with positive messages. She also started #WednesdaysforWater, a campaign to bring awareness to access to clean water around the world. “There are people all across the country living with a water crisis, and they may not be aware of it. We have an American Water Crisis, and it should be on the front pages of every newspaper across the country…I will never fully trust the government or media. If something they say doesn’t sit right with me, I will always question it. I will never trust tap water ever again. Flint has taught me that we need to listen to and believe in science and to always question, even the things we take for granted the most” (Copeny, 2019).

Another activist, 14-year-old Autumn Peltier, is Indigenous to the Anishinaabe tribe of Northern Ontario. She has been advocating for clean drinking water across Canada since she was eight years old. In 2019, she was named chief water commissioner by the Anishinabek Nation, a political advocacy group for 40 First Nations across Ontario (“Autumn Peltier,” 2019). On World Water Day in March 2019 at the United Nations General Assembly, she delivered a speech in which she said, “Many people don’t think water is alive or has a spirit. My people believe this to be true. Our water deserves to be treated as human with human rights. We need to acknowledge our waters with personhood so we can protect our waters” (Volkov, 2018).

Youth climate activists take a different approach in reaching a wide audience; they use a personal angle, as the younger generations will experience greater loss (Ramadan, 2019). Combined with the use of visual storytelling, including Black and Seaman’s photo essays, the stories of youth activism provide powerful messages of resilience, from awareness to action.

Systemic Change

What enacts systemic change in a situation like the Flint water crisis? One solution is allowing multiple stakeholders to find their place in the problem (Watson, 2014).

One stakeholder, Dr. Laura Sullivan, is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Kettering University, who has been appointed by Michigan governor Rick Snyder to the Flint Water Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee to oversee the long-term solutions for Flint’s water system. Dr. Robert K. McMahan, Kettering University President, explains that Dr. Sullivan’s “engineering expertise, relationships in the community, and relentless pursuit of sustainable solutions to problems in water and human health are inspiring. She embodies a commitment to our community and our city; her efforts will certainly lead to collaborative, sustainable solutions to help Flint recover from this challenge” (“Kettering University faculty member,” 2016). Building trust amongst the Flint citizens, said Dr. Sullivan, is a core component to the next steps of action (“Kettering University faculty member,” 2016).

Another group of stakeholders are a core group of six women who are using science and technology to advocate for clean water. These six women include activist Mari Copeny, engineers Mikayla Sharrief, India Skinner and Bria Snell, inventor Gitanjali Rao, and entrepreneur Doll Evant (“Women of Water,” n.d.). Each woman is pushing the boundaries, using science and technology for the common good, to help create solutions for clean water using the Flint water crisis as an impetus for change.

Rao, a fifteen-old scientist and inventor from Colorado, won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge. She embodies a passion to help others. “I have always loved to help other people…I want my impact on the world to be something that is life changing” (“Women of Water,” n.d.). She designed a compact device to detect lead in drinking water. Determined to create real-world solutions using science, Rao said that she was determined to do something “for the residents of Flint and places like Flint around the world” (“Meet the 11-year-old inventor,” 2017).

And lastly, educators are stakeholders. In November 2019, the annual place-based education (PBE) conference hosted by the Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative was held in Flint, Michigan. The conference theme, “Building Strong and Transformative Communities Together,” gathered education stakeholders, including K-12 educators, university faculty and students, as well as natural resource professionals, staff of community organizations, policy makers and funders (“Place-Based Education Conference,” 2019).

PBE “immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, using these as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum” (“What is placed based education,” n.d.). PBE is supported by design thinking and includes social and emotional, service, and civic learning which “encourages students to become active citizens by engaging them with issues in their communities and beyond” (“What is Place-Based Education,” 2017).

Mary Ellen Newport, high school ecology teacher at Interlochen Center for the Arts in the Grand Traverse region in Michigan, attended the conference as well as the Flint immersion tour, designed to expose educators to Flint in order to stimulate conversation and support the development of transformative communities. During this tour, Newport learnedmore about the challenges imposed by the local government and on the infrastructure of the city. For instance, she described that “Michigan has laws that give the governor the strongest powers to take over municipalities, and that during the takeover of Flint, instead of distributing funds to cities, moneys were put in the state’s rainy day fund.”

Resources shared during the immersion tour included the following: Flint River Ecosystem and Restoration project, Flint Rising, a coalition of community organizations and allies working together to ensure that “directly impacted people are building the organizing infrastructure and leadership necessary for this long-haul fight for justice and creating the future that Flint families need and deserve” (“Flint Rising,” n.d.).

City of Flint resources, including restoration plans, and curriculum resources from the Global Oneness Project and an elementary lesson plan “The Science and Civics of the Flint Water Crisis” were also included. In this lesson, students identified the causes of the Flint water crisis through STEM activities and “evaluation strategies of clean water advocacy by evaluating the work of musical artist Vic Mensa and activist Mari Copeny” (“The Science and Civics,” n.d.).

Dr. Sullivan has worked on water projects around the world. When asked how Flint’s water crisis compares to water crises in underdeveloped countries (for example, in Sub-Saharan African and South America) she explains, “it feels more and more like a system in parts of the world where the government is corrupt, and there are too many hands that are involved that don’t involve the people who are actually living in poverty. And the people who are living in poverty aren’t empowered to be part of the solution” (“Kettering University faculty member,” 2016).

Conclusion

Water is a necessary element for human survival. The Flint water crisis is an example of what happens when this basic human right is inaccessible due to corruption, mismanagement, and greed, which most often impacts marginalized communities.

“But this is also a story about the deeper crises we’re facing right now in our country; a breakdown in democracy; the disintegration of critical infrastructure due to inequality and austerity; environmental injustice that disproportionately affects the poor and black; the abandonment of civic responsibility and our deep obligations as human beings to care and provide for one another” (Hanna-Attisha, 2018, p.13).

Immersive storytelling, which documents the inequality of water, can foster empathy. These stories can innately draw us in with basic human elements, connecting us through their universality. They are essential in that they convey the essence of what it is to be human – to engage, to learn, to love, to persevere, and to be resilient.

Combined with companion curricula, storytelling through the medium of photography is a tool for educators, students, and the general public to comprehend the Flint water crisis, and other crises, through the lens of environmental justice. Putting a human face to water crises in multiple places encourages students to learn firsthand accounts of injustice from people who are suffering. Being able to identify the changemakers and stakeholders advocating for change can challenge students to embrace a different perspective and worldview to foster citizenry and action in their own lives.

  

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