Toxic Tour

All the Boston IQP groups were able to come together on Thursday, October 7th for a Toxic Tour in Dudley Square. The teams met Professor Tuler at Ruggles (an orange line stop) to walk to Dudley Square to meet the tour guide. We first went into the ACE building to meet our tour guide, but we sat down at a table. We started by introducing ourselves individually and we had to say one word that came to mind when we heard the words environment and justice. A list was then formulated by the entire group. Then, we were split up into smaller groups to come up with a definition of Environmental Justice. Each group shared their version of a definition they came up with. We also had to choose an item in the basket and explain what it's significance was to the definitions that we came up with. My group happened to have safety goggles and we said that they were a vision into the future of environmental justice and how things are changing.

Old Bus Garage

 We then went outside to the different sites that the tour guide brought us to. After doing the two initial activities, the tour made a lot of sense. Dudley Square is a very poor part of Roxbury, where pollution filled the air and trash was piled up everywhere. Young children would grow up with asthma because of the amount of pollution in that certain area. Every one child with asthma anywhere else was six children who had it in Dudley Square.

Site on the Tour

After walking through Dudley Square and some of Roxbury, I felt that I had learned a lot. I had no idea that such a busy area that many people take to get into Boston had such an effect on the people and the community itself. Overall, I thought the tour was a great eye opener!