The AMBIENT Project is a systemic approach to environmental health science education. Focused around the four environmental themes of air, water, soil and food, as well as an additional emphasis on ethics and toxicology, a health-science problem-based learning approach is being delivered by trained teachers to the ethnically diverse population of high school students in Miami-Dade County. High school teachers work together to enhance understanding of environmental health and ethical issues through a hands-on summer workshop with research scientists from the University of Miami, Florida International University, and County Department of Health. Best practices from existing environmental health curriculum materials are assembled for use in the training. An important emphasis of the project is to provide team teaching strategies for incorporating interdisciplinary activities into the large classes of more than 35 students at the typical US high school.

This project, funded by the National Institute of Health, is being implemented by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Science Center, located at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) at the University of Miami. Investigators from throughout the University of Miami participate, including from the School of Medicine, the School of Engineering, and the School of Arts and Sciences (Department of Chemistry), as well as the Miami Dade County Department of Public Health, Florida International University, and the community. The AMBIENT Project is performed in partnership with the Miami Dade County Public Schools, with community and industry support.

The NIEHS Center at the University of Miami is one of four Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Centers of Excellence sponsored by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Our research themes are Marine Toxins and Human Health, and Marine Models of Human Disease. Dr. Patrick Walsh, the Principal Investigator of the AMBIENT Project, is also the Director of the NIEHS Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Center.

The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science is the University of Miami's graduate school of marine and atmospheric science. Located on a 16-acre campus on Virginia Key in Miami, it is the only subtropical applied and basic marine and atmospheric research institute of its kind in the continental United States. The Rosenstiel School conducts a broad range of research on local, regional, national and global levels. More than 90 Ph.D. faculty members, 180 graduate students, and a research support and administrative staff of 250 comprise the academic community. Close partnerships with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Southeast Fisheries Science Center, also located on Virginia Key, provide many mutually beneficial opportunities for collaboration.

The Need
According to Project 2061, an enterprise launched by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an avalanche of recent studies has made it abundantly clear that by both national standards and world norms, the U.S. educational system is failing too many students - and hence failing the Nation. There is a need for all students in our nation to perform at levels that are compatible with the National Science Education Standards, as well as improving overall academic performance. Science literacy and the number of students interested in careers in natural science have been in a steady decline for a number of years especially among minority students. A national awareness of the need to improve teaching and learning in science and mathematics is occurring in response to this decline. Science literacy has emerged as a central goal of education. By all accounts, America has no more urgent priority than the reform of education in math, science and technology.

Project Overview
The overall goal of the proposed AMBIENT Project is to motivate, engage and prepare urban, under-represented students to improve overall academic performance throughout high school leading to high school completion using a systemic implementation of an interdisciplinary, teacher/scientist-generated environmental health science curriculum.

Creation of an integrated environmental health curriculum involving contaminants of air, water, food and soil as interdisciplinary curricular themes as well as ethics and toxicology, and incorporating:

• Use of culturally sensitive environmental health science curricular materials to enhance overall academic performance.
• Use of previously developed and piloted environmental health science materials.

Integration of interdisciplinary teaching with environmental health scientist consultants using multi-disciplinary teams, and incorporating:

• Enhancement of teacher and student knowledge base of environmental health science concepts through real-life applications.
• Increase of teacher awareness of environmental health science issues through shared teaching techniques applicable to class sizes of 35 or more students.

Enhancement of students' critical thinking skills to develop a sense of personal involvement in environmental health, incorporating:

• Enhancement of student comprehension through the perspectives of several academic disciplines.
• Heightened student awareness of career opportunities in environmental health science.
• Generation of social responsibility and environmental health ethics in students.

Development of an exportable curriculum which is culturally sensitive and interdisciplinary, incorporating:

• Use of field, laboratory, computer and other technologies to enhance environmental health teaching and learning.
• Use of Internet learning as a resource and dissemination tool.

Evaluation is performed by an independent consulting group on an ongoing and annual basis, reviewing the materials and the experience of the teachers, students, and Environmental Health scientists, and incorporating:

• Use of evaluation feedback to continually improve the proposed AMBIENT Project during the course of the program.
• Augmentation of the use of environmental health curriculum in High School courses.
• Improvement of student performance on standardized tests.
• Augmentation of the interest of ethnically, racially and socio-economically diverse students in Environmental Health.