Documenting Environmental Degradation and Its Consequences Using Visual Methods as Pedagogical Tools in Social Work Education

ABSTRACT

Environmental degradation, including the depletion of natural resources, the distortion of environmental aesthetics, diminished physical infrastructure, and the poisoning of essential environmental supplies involving air, water, and soil abridge environmental quality, particularly for those who are impoverished, possess qualities that do not fit acceptable racial or ethnic stereotypes, face physical barriers preventing social integration, or who are encapsulated in communities in which societal disinvestment weakens quality of environment. Visual methods for documenting environmental degradation are useful in identifying and assessing this social issue from the perspectives of people and groups that face marginalization. Such methods are useful for sensitizing social work students to environmental degradation, heightening students’ understanding of environmental injustice, and alerting them to how environmental quality is an essential aim of social work practice.

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Notes on contributors

David P. Moxley

David P. Moxley is professor and director, University of Alaska Anchorage School of Social Work, Anchorage, Alaska.