“We want to set up a network of air quality sensors around the city and map out the air quality—particularly in the Bronx—and help students become scientifically literate activists in their communities,” said Stephen Holler, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of Fordham’s physics and engineering physics department, who is co-leading the project with Usha Sankar, Ph.D., an advanced lecturer in biological sciences. “Through our project, we can start a dialogue about climate change and say, ‘Let’s do something to fix it together.’”

Air pollution triggers many respiratory illnesses. One in 13 Americans have asthma, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Among the five New York City boroughs, the Bronx has the highest percentage of asthma diagnoses for children up to age 12, as well as the highest child asthma hospitalization rates. 

The goal of Project FRESH Air (Fordham Regional Environmental Sensor for Healthy Air) is to combat those statistics with education. 

Holler has started setting up a network of PurpleAir air quality sensors in middle and high schools in the Bronx and upper Manhattan, including Jonas Bronck Academy, All Hallows High School, and Cristo Rey New York High School. Each sensor—not just the project sensors in the city, but independent Purple Air sensors worldwide—records data 24/7. The data is viewable on an interactive map in real time. 

The project garners interest because air quality is an issue people can relate to, Holler said. 

“I don’t think that many people in the Bronx are interested in the fact that it’s going to be one or two degrees warmer in a few decades. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck and worried about your kids, that’s not your high priority, right? So we’re tackling this issue by looking at it through an air quality perspective,” said Holler, who has previously worked with local students on climate change projects. “Air quality will degrade as the climate changes. We’ll have more pollution and particulate matter in the air from combustion sources, vehicles, and the urban environment, which irritate the lungs and aggravate asthma. But this is an immediate problem that we can address.” 

The FRESH Air team, which includes Fordham faculty, undergraduates, and middle and high school educators, is now working on ways to incorporate the sensors and their data into middle and high school curricula. Students will be able to build their own handheld sensors with special kits. They will also be tasked with plotting air quality data from their sensors and searching for trends. 

“They can plot the data in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets and correlate it with factors like weather. Was the air quality better on this day or another? Was there a holiday? And they can start to understand the dynamics and patterns that are happening in their community,” Holler said.

This fall through a virtual webinar, the FRESH Air team introduced the project to students and families at Jonas Bronck Academy, located one block away from the Rose Hill campus. 

“The day after the informational session, our students were asking questions to all five of us teachers,” said Alexiander Soler, a seventh grade science teacher at JBA. “‘What is air quality? How does that relate to us? How does it connect to asthma?’”

Next spring, JBA will integrate Project FRESH Air into its sixth, seventh, and eighth grade curricula. The sixth graders will learn about air pollution and how it’s measured, the seventh graders will learn about health implications affected by air quality, and the eighth graders will learn how technology improves data collection, while using the sensors and their data, said Soler. Fordham undergraduates will also work with students on a weekly basis to help them analyze their data, said Holler. About 260 students at JBA will benefit from this curriculum, said Soler.

“These sensors are effectively going to be permanent installations,” Holler said. “Over the next two to three years, we are looking to have about 25 schools on this project.” 

The project originally emerged from the Higher Education Incubator and Think Tank led by Eva Badowska, Ph.D., dean of the faculty of arts and sciences and associate vice president for arts and sciences, and Anne Fernald, Ph.D., professor of English and special adviser to the provost, before the pandemic. It is being largely funded by James C. McGroddy, a former senior vice president and director of research at IBM who wants to promote STEM education, especially for minority and underserved populations. 

“The purpose of science is to gain an understanding of the natural world and its impact on our lives. This project will create a real scenario that our students can identify with, and hopefully increase their interest in science and becoming problem-solvers,” said Soler. “It will allow our students to see how science truly affects their lives.”  

Student Podcasting

Nicholas Paul, Ph.D., an associate professor of history, teaches in Fordham’s Medieval Studies program, one of the biggest programs of its kind in the world. His presentation, Podcasting and the History Graduate Classroom, offered ideas on how to make dense topics easier to digest.

While teaching a course on the Crusader states, which Paul described as “an arcane subject, even within the field of medieval history,” he wanted his students to have a way of interpreting these esoteric and difficult ideas to a larger audience.

“My students were gaining knowledge about something that no one else knows about. So the idea was to get comfortable with communicating these difficult ideas… How are we going to be able to explain the skills and the knowledge that this person has gained in some sort of wider context?”

As a solution, Paul came up with the podcasting idea. He tasked his students with creating a seven-to-10 minute podcast, encouraging them to listen to other popular history podcasts to get a feel of what to do. For the assignment, they were required to gather the technology and equipment they needed, write a script, record the podcast, and work with Paul on editing their audio until they were satisfied with the final products, which were then uploaded to SoundCloud and linked to their website, The Crusader States, for anyone to listen to.

Students were graded on how effectively they organized the information in a comprehensible way, which “was challenging to some people, especially people who were in Ph.D. programs, who have identified themselves as an intellectual. And they’re like, ‘I deliberately can’t speak to other people,’ so we break that down and say ‘you have to try.’”

The podcasts received encouraging responses from Paul’s Twitter followers. Listeners bantered back and forth, gave feedback, wrote comments, and even started to look forward to new episodes after the year ended, which Paul jokingly called “season 2” of the podcast series.

Using Polling Techniques for Instant Feedback

Usha Sankar, Ph.D., a lecturer in the biological sciences department who teaches courses like human physiology, was also looking for ways to keep students engaged. She has found polling techniques to be a useful strategy.

Using polling software, Sankar incorporated an interactive strategy into her lectures to keep her classroom energy as dynamic as possible.

There are many polling technologies out there—Sankar uses Poll Everywhere, a live interactive audience participation website used to gather responses. It can be used to create pop quizzes, polls, teaching games, and more. Students access their personal account page on their phones, answer questions directly, and see responses in real time.

Sankar has hosted a medley of quizzes, games, and competitions on her own Poll Everywhere page to test students about what they’ve learned during the lecture. The interactive aspect of the polling strategy allows her students to feel more engaged than if they were just listening to a lecture.

“Polling is a great way to gauge student engagement and understanding of concepts. The best polling methods are those that are intuitive, easy to access, cheap, encourage full participation, and provide detailed reports and feedback,” she said.

She’s also “constantly looking to improve my teaching,” she said, and polling is a great way to get feedback.

Keeping Students Engaged with Creative Pedagogy

Jane Suda, head of reference and information services in the Walsh Library on the Rose Hill campus, was impressed with the presentations she sat in on during the day, and their emphasis on “how you can use different technologies to make important learning points to the students and also make a creative classroom environment that is not your standard ‘write a paper, take a test’ environment,’” she said.

“In essence it’s like taking the classroom, breaking down the walls, and saying OK, now we’re gonna take what you’re learning in this one class, and throw it out into the public, and so we’re all polling, we’re podcasting, we’re creating websites, and so it’s not just what am I doing for the teacher, but what am I doing for the world, and that’s really dynamic. It changes what the classroom is all about.”

The words study abroad bring to mind traveling to new places, meeting different people, eating all kinds of delicious foods, and having new experiences. I had the pleasure of leading a dozen Fordham pre-health students to Cali, Colombia, on a weeklong study abroad course. Since this is the third time I am leading this course, I can say that study abroad not only opens students’ eyes to new cultures and new possibilities but also gives them the opportunity to learn about themselves.

Almost half of all Fordham undergraduates study abroad, but it is not very common for students in the pre-health professions track. A one-credit service course, called Community Health in Cali, Colombia, held each year during spring break, is probably the only study abroad program available for pre-health students. As the faculty leader, I have always enjoyed the trip as it feels like an extension of my Human Physiology course here on campus. Not only do we talk about human health and disease, but I can also extend the discussions on health care systems in the U.S. and abroad.

As part of the service course, these students get to visit the city of Cali and learn about the health care system there. Colombia has the fourth largest economy in Latin America and Cali is the third largest city in Colombia, located southwest of Bogotá and situated in the Valle de Cauca. It is a thriving metropolis of about 2.4 million people. Cali has many private and public universities and Fordham has a special relationship with Javeriana University, a private Jesuit university that hosts us while we’re there. Javeriana is a nonresidential university with undergraduate and graduate programs; it also has a medical school. Colombian students start medical school directly from high school and graduate in five years, followed by a one-year internship and residency.

Fordham students are inquisitive and eager to learn about other cultures and different health care systems. The study abroad course is ideally suited for pre-health students interested in pursuing medicine as well as public health. What we discover is that Colombia’s healthcare system is based on the income level of the people and organizes the population into six strata, or levels. The bottom-most layer is made up of people that have very low or no income; their basic medical care is covered by the government. At higher income levels, people receive better medical coverage from their employers. People at the highest strata are often able to pay out of pocket and access the best medical care available.

As the week progressed, we interacted with many Javeriana medical students, who are very open and friendly, and attended lectures and labs with Javeriana medical school faculty. The students dissected pig hearts, studied the electrophysiology of the cardiovascular system, and learned how to get a medical history of patients in Spanish. They also listened to a lecture on the various facets of being a physician—the hard work, the physical and emotional toll, as well as the financial remuneration. One of the medical school professors also highlighted the most important reason to choose medicine as a profession: the capacity to serve others and derive happiness from it.

We visited several hospitals and clinics to get a better idea of the healthcare system in Colombia. One of the best and most touching experiences for students was visiting the Institute for Deaf and Blind children, where the disabled children get necessary surgeries and treatments for their conditions. The institute also has a school that teaches them skills to make them independent and help them transition to high school and college so that they can become productive members of society.

We also got to be a part of an outreach program run by Javeriana public health faculty and Javeriana medical students. The students visit areas in and around Cali, especially on the hillsides, where it might be harder for people to access the medical centers. They talk to people about good nutrition, maternal and children’s health, vaccinations, how to maintain healthy lifestyles, and exercise, among other things. This is a great opportunity for Fordham students to actually meet the local people and interact with them.

One of the most important aspects of education, and certainly Jesuit education, is to reflect on the learning and incorporate the learning into practice. As part of the program, I asked the students to submit a daily reflection. At the end of the trip, I asked them to write a reflective paper examining how the program influenced their thinking in terms of their commitment to health professions, and how they might incorporate the lessons they learned in Cali moving forward. All the students felt that the program helped them to visualize themselves in medical school and a hospital setting and to be able to communicate with people from different backgrounds. They felt a new sense of confidence.

In all, it was a fun and educational experience and that leaves the students reenergized and refocused on their future plans to be part of a profession that improves lives. The most important thing we learned about was our ability to connect at a very human level—and that it’s our connections that define us, not our differences. That, I hope, is the lasting message that resonates with all my students, regardless of the professions they enter.

Photos courtesy of Usha Sankar.

Top photo, standing, left to right: Sydney Souness, Antonia Flores, Maribel Molina, Samantha Hamilton, Fatima Khan, Usha Sankar Ph.D., John Soriano, Brittany Zaita, LiYing Wei, Stephanie Pepdjonovic. Sitting, left to right: local guide Veronica Paris, Issy Asianah, Kevin Quiah, Daniel Garcia