2 minute read
Project EARTH
For more than a decade, the ETSUEastman Valleybrook campus has been home to pioneering public health programs that were recently featured in a national journal, Wilderness & Environmental Medicine.
The ETSU-Eastman Valleybrook campus, located in northern Washington County, houses the ETSU College of Public Health’s nationally award-winning Project EARTH (Employing Available Resources to Transform Health). Along with the Niswonger VILLAGE, Project EARTH is the only public health simulation lab of its kind in the country that replicates how people live and work in resource-limited settings.
Project EARTH gives students the tools to save lives in remote, resource-limited areas around the world and to respond and assist when natural or humancaused disasters strike. In 2017, the Niswonger VILLAGE and Project EARTH earned the prestigious Delta Omega Award for the most innovative public health curriculum in the country.
“Even graduates working in major metropolitan centers may find themselves suddenly working in a resource-limited setting after a tornado, a wildfire, a hurricane, or a flood,” said Dr. Randy Wykoff, Dean of the College of Public Health. “Some graduates, of course, will choose to work in very rural areas, both in the United States and abroad. In all of those settings, the ability to provide water, sanitation, and shelter can be the difference between life and death. We want to give our students the tools, the skills, and the confidence to know that they can save lives even in the most remote or devastated communities.”
Project EARTH includes both credit-bearing courses and programs designed to address community needs, including AdaptoPlay and RE:CYCLING.
AdaptoPlay is a non-profit organization supported by Project EARTH that is dedicated to improving the quality of life of children with differing abilities by providing low-tech solutions to improve their ability to participate in play and mobility activities so they are better equipped to interact and participate with their peers.
The RE:CYCLING program highlights efforts to solve public health issues using locally available technology. The program consists of two parts – refurbishing bicycles for local children and using bicycles to design “machines” that can improve the quality of life in low-resource areas.
Melissa Nipper is Director of Marketing and Communications in the ETSU Office of University Marketing and Communications.
SCAN THE QR CODE TO WATCH PROJECT EARTH HIGHLIGHTS.
