UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — From riding along with a mobile medical unit in central Pennsylvania to studying the effects of deforestation on people and animals in Costa Rica, six students in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences’ One Health minor are gaining firsthand insight into the interconnectedness of human, animal and environmental health.
The students are the first to complete unique fieldwork projects as part of the revamped One Health minor. The minor has been offered through the college’s Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences for about a decade but only recently added a required experiential learning capstone project to its curriculum.
Using funds from the Harbaugh Faculty Scholars Award and a $3,000 grant from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence’s Curriculum Innovation and Renewal Program, Assistant Teaching Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences Jennifer Koehl has redesigned the minor to take students out of the classroom to explore the concept of One Health, the multidisciplinary approach that helps solve complex health problems that arise in communities.
“While you can sit in a classroom and didactically teach, it makes more sense for students to actively participate in a cog of the One Health machine,” Koehl said. “Through designing and completing their own projects, students gain a multidisciplinary approach to studying the intertwined problems of human, animal and environmental health.”