The Citizens League for Environmental Action Now, CLEAN / Clear Lake and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Environmental Toxicology Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston are collaborating on an innovative project to focus public awareness on regional environmental issues and increase scientific literacy in environmental toxicology and risk assessment. This multi-generational process involves citizens from Houston, Seabrook, Clear Lake, Pasadena and other area communities, and personnel from the NIEHS Center’s Public Forum and Toxics Assistance Division in an effort to use applied theater workshops and performances, a series of staged play readings and a small-scale community health effects survey to stimulate dialogue on the linkages between toxic exposures and disease incidence in fence line communities. The project is funded through an NIEHS Pilot Project grant entitled, Community Forum Theater: a Flexible, Iterative Model for Dialogue & Collaboration Among Citizens & NIEHS Center Investigators ; the Principal Investigator is John Sullivan, Co-Director of the Public Forum and Toxics Assistance Division.

Features:

Community Environmental Forum Theater
Find out what community environmental forum theater is all about.

A Strong Beginning: Community Environmental Forum Theater @The Armand Bayou Nature Center
Community Forum Theater was launched on June 25th at the Armand Bayou Nature Center. Citizens from neighboring communities, members of local environmental groups, and students (grades 4th – 12th) from Clear Creek Independent School District spent an intense, eighteen hour weekend learning the basics of Augusto Boal’s Forum Theater and making human sculptural images of environmental toxicology concepts such as: exposure pathways, acute vs. chronic exposures, differences in genetic susceptibilities to the adverse health effects of exposures, and body burdens.

Introduction to Forum Theater
The Forum Theater process is based on an applied theater dramatic system developed by Augusto Boal of Brazil...

For more information please visit UTMB NIEHS Center Community Outreach and Education Program.