Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

1. Ron Finley’s Community Gardening Project in South Central L.A.’s Food Desert

https://www.ted.com/speakers/ron_finley

This website provides background about Ron Finley and access to the video of his Ted Talk. Students are assigned to read the background, watch the Ted Talk, and complete the following exercise.

• Define food desert, and explain how there can be one in the middle of a metropolitan area. What does this tell us about American and urban culture?
• How did the city of L.A. react to the “radical” project of growing food on unused public property?
• Find additional information online about the response of participants in Finley’s gardening project or about paticipants who are involved in a different community vegetable gardening project. Do they seem to have derived any of the benefits mentioned in the chapter of time spent in the natural environment?
• Summarize your answers, and send the summary in an e-mail to the instructor.

*LO 6.6 Give examples of the impact of the built environment on human behavior.

2. Environmental Issues and Environmental Justice

https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice

This is the section of the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that explains and provides information about its role in environmental justice.

• Familiarize yourself with the definition of environmental justice that is given on the EPA website, and then compare it with the information about environmental justice given on the website of the nonprofit organization, Energy Justice Network: http://www.energyjustice.net/about 
• Which organization provides the most concrete examples of environmental harm being done to communities and changes that must be made to achieve environmental justice?
• Write two paragraphs.
  
  • First, compare and contrast the information on the two websites.
  • Second, give your opinion about whether social work’s commitment to social justice includes joining local community action groups working on environmental justice issues.

• Make a copy of what you wrote that does not have your name on it, and exchange these copies in class so that each person can read what someone else wrote. (Submit the copy of the assignment with your name on it to the instructor). Have some of these read aloud in class in order to hear the range of responses.

* LO 6.10 Apply knowledge of culture and the relationship between the physical environment and human behavior to recommend guidelines for social work assessment and intervention.

3. Learn About the Campaign to End Veteran Homelessness

https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Ten_Strategies_to_End_Veteran_Homelessness.pdf

This site describes explicit actions communities should take to locate and house homeless veterans (developed in conjunction with Michelle Obama’s national campaign to end veteran homelessness).

• Read the strategies.
• Find out, through local contacts or the Internet, what your town, county, or state has done to locate homeless veterans and assist them in obtaining stable housing community. Write one or two paragraphs evaluating what has been done.

* LO 6.8 Suggest policy options for the social problem of homelessness.