One Health minor in College of Ag Sciences offers custom fieldwork experiences

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.”

Koehl explained that One Health gives students a top-down perspective on problems that often have multiple facets. For example, she said, students could investigate the increasing cases of vector-borne illnesses, such as malaria, dengue and West Nile virus, seen in animals and people after extreme weather events caused by climate change.

Another example, Koehl said, is highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI. The H5N1 strain of the disease traveled within the wild bird population for years before more recently entering poultry facilities and infecting mammals such as cattle and cats, then agricultural workers. The disease is responsible for the high price of eggs, as it has impacted egg-laying flocks around the country. Veterinarians are concerned for future mammal-to-mammal spread and the potential for a new pandemic, according to Koehl.

“These are complicated problems, what we call ‘wicked’ problems, for which you need a team of people with various expertise to solve,” Koehl said. “Students can gain some of that expertise by looking at a problem and determining what changes could have the greatest impact on health.”

Students submitted a proposal related to their One Health project in consultation with Koehl last semester. After wrapping up the fieldwork portion and analysis this spring, they completed a poster presentation at the Undergraduate Exhibition April 16 at the HUB-Robeson Center.

Koehl is using her two funding sources to help pay for student study-abroad experiences, including registration, travel expenses and rabies vaccinations, so that students can interact directly with animals.

Paige Fino, of Burgettstown, was attracted to the One Health program to learn how conservation efforts can improve communities, reduce disease and help endangered species. Fino spent two weeks at remote field stations in Costa Rica.

“Costa Rica has successfully reversed deforestation and managed to improve population levels of endangered and threatened species,” said the third-year veterinary and biomedical sciences major. “I want to bring awareness to this success story and show people that our actions matter and make an impact. In the long run, I am very interested in conservation medicine, and I want to continue participating in conservation efforts after my schooling is completed.”

Fino’s poster presentation at the Undergraduate Exhibition won the University Libraries Undergraduate Research Award for Excellence in Information Literacy. The $500 grand prize recognizes undergraduate research that showcases “accomplished and exemplary information literacy skills.”

Sophia Kutsaya, who plans to attend the Royal Veterinary College in London in the fall, focused her fieldwork on the potential for bacterial infection to spread through handling chickens. To gain insight, she consulted with avian pathologists from Penn State’s Animal Diagnostic Laboratory.

“I am from Bucks County and know many people who either have backyard poultry or are considering getting their own because of how expensive eggs have been lately,” the senior veterinary and biomedical sciences major said. “I want to make individuals aware of the dangers associated with owning poultry, so understanding the diseases that can infect them, or their potential flock, is super important.”

Emma Doonan, of Jeannette, a senior immunology and infectious disease major, and Chloe Waltemyer, of York, a veterinary and biomedical sciences major, this semester rode along with the LION Mobile Clinic, which offers free health screenings at community events, to educate the public about safe interactions with animals.

“Our project is directed toward creating a lesson plan that teaches young children about how to have safe interactions with animals,” Waltemyer said. “This helps to keep both animals and people safe, upholding our One Health curriculum.”

Isabelle Rodemaker, of Grantville, and Shanu Gopinathan, of Ashburn, Virginia, both veterinary and biomedical sciences majors, served as animal experts for a landscape architecture class, LARCH 414: Design Activism Studio, to help guide landscape architecture students in creating designs using One Health principles. The class traveled to Claverito, Peru, to design ecotourist attractions for the local community.

 “Our task was to identify One Health connections so that landscape architecture students could better design ecotourist attractions that do not impact animals or the environment negatively,” Rodemaker said. “It was enlightening to work with and bounce ideas off one another while trying to design for this community and to experience the One Health connections in a different culture.”