"A Third World Country Revealed at Home: Disaster Mitigation and Conservation Biology in the American South."
Doane students spent January 2006 in New Orleans and rural Mississippi, completing a service learning course that combined volunteer work with a study of the environmental and social toll of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Led by professors of biology and sociology, the three-week course also offered a unique look at how the two subjects are closely linked.
Much of their time was spent gutting and repairing homes near Waveland, Miss., a rural area about 30 minutes east of New Orleans. The United Church of Christ of New Orleans organized the project.
During their stay students studied damage to barrier islands, national wildlife refuges and swamps south of New Orleans. They also spent time in a rural Mississippi elementary school and parts of New Orleans.
Along the way, they studied the human faces of disaster recovery and all that must be rebuilt, from the lost sense of community to affordable real estate.