Design a Toxic Tour: Using Sightseeing to Call
Attention to Local Pollution Sites
Toxic Tours, in general, are defined as an educational tool for individuals within and outside of the community used to
gain a further understanding of environmental justice issues.
Toxic tours are a way to get community members aware of their neighborhoods’ environmental hazards. These tours
can show how environmental racism and classism have impacted the community.
The environmental justice movement has offered toxic tours — non-commercial trips intended to highlight people and
local pollution in efforts to create a new understanding of environmental justice and to increase participation in
environmental decision-making process.
Assignment Description
Design a toxic tour by completing the following:
1. Go to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Cleanups In My Community
(CIMC). ( you will
see that you can view the data in a map or list/table. Read through this page.
2. Then, learn about the:
a. CIMC Datasets (
b. Map Hints and How Tos (
how-tos)
3. Now that you understand the data and how to use the map, go back to the Cleanups In My
Community Map (
4. Select a neighborhood or community near where you live and learn about the
different environmental clean-up types or potential sources of pollution in that
area.
Listen
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Click on your state to see CIMC, OR Click on “Map all cleanup types for the whole
USA” (
You will now see a map. Click and “Define your Community” (start with zip code or if you
use a specific address, be sure to modify the radius)
Once you have set the area:
Click on “Layers” to select additional clean up types
Click on the icons that appear on the map. These icons represent different
environmental clean-up types or potential sources of pollution.
After you click on the icon, a box will appear with external links, providing the:
Site description (for example, FRS Profile, Brownfields Property profile, RCRA
Corrective Action Profile, Superfund Site Home Page, etc….)
Socio-demographic data under Census Profiles. Select the most recent year.
This is the information you will need to complete the Toxic Tour Site
Description template described in 5a.
If your web browser will not load the CIMC map, then you can simply
Create a listing of cleanups or grants CIMC Listings website.
(
5. Identify five locations that pose an environmental threat to the neighboring communities.
For each location, follow the Toxic Tour Site Description Template
(
Fill out this information on a word document.
6. Add each of your sites to one of the shared Google Maps for this class. Google maps allows
10 layers per map. We recommend using Chrome or Firefox web browsers.
7. Below are the maps to add your sites. If you get the message, “Could not add layer. You
have reached the layer limit for this map”. Try another map! NOTE: To access a map, hold
down CTRL+Click on map.
Map 1 (
N4e1sOUCmGwPsd5miiY9fl9j-4&usp=drive_link)
Map 2 (
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mid=1x9v3sydX3gNbDSHaas-EnDnai-RGQTI&usp=drive_link)
Map 3 (
mid=1M_FpkGJ9VRj_5jwrv4ba_99IPQKlh-M&usp=drive_link)
Map 4 (
mid=1pdELvIZq6FkX0IeYO05YBbi1xGgeNCE&usp=drive_link)
Map 5 (
mid=1q4Qo77koKTMnmHHPHCETZ77l7Wl2dkk&usp=drive_link)
Map 6 (mid=1v-
VuZWJaDspQfZpCigC8i1KEyn48Z4w&usp=drive_link)
Map 7 (
mid=1FIrnE1rWtc3Z0eqyGTCPF3q5Uf9A4Kg&usp=drive_link)
Map 8 (
mid=1NI84TU7DQ6naUnFFcSNz2rXNUmaNRFI&usp=drive_link)
Map 9 (
mid=1lhoIawQdDnRqOt6s2ym-Z7HChoGoQuQ&usp=drive_link)
Map 10 (
mid=16N6DG1DBCNuF2yNAWqfDamEUuxXytpk&usp=drive_link)
8. See Instructions: Adding Your Toxic Sites to Google Maps
(/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?
ou=920118&type=content&rcode=Arizona-5991888) and How to create google
maps (/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?
ou=920118&type=content&rcode=Arizona-5800624)
b. Optional: Once you have added the site to the map, add images or videos to your locations. This is not
required, but sometimes images and/or videos help illustrate the site better.
c. Lastly, add a driving, biking or walking route to your sites on the map. Imagine you will
be giving this tour to university students or professionals, scientists, government
officials, advocate groups, and/or community members.
9. Now that you have prepared the Toxic Tour, recall the Ecological Model. In the context of Environmental Health
and Justice, propose and describe an intervention approach at each level of influence for your entire
toxic tour (not each individual site):
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Intrapersonal
Interpersonal
Institutional
Community
Public Policy
**Please use the provided Ecological Model template (/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?
ou=1392988&type=coursefile&fileId=Ecological+Model+Template.pdf).
7. In addition to adding your sites to the map, submit a single document containing:
(1) the google map link (be sure the map is public or shared with me), (2) your answers to
the Toxic Tour Site Template for each site, and (3) your proposed intervention to the Toxic
Tour Assignment Submission. (/d2l/common/dialogs/quickLink/quickLink.d2l?
ou=1392988&type=content&rcode=Arizona-5991749)
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