Honors Projects

Abstract

Individuals interact with their environment daily, and whether they realize it or not, these interactions can impact their health. Understanding the health impacts associated with the environment is important to human health at both an individual and population level. I am proposing a new field of environmental counseling that would incorporate principles from a variety of practices into one comprehensive discipline that can be used to promote public health. By studying populations that have had negative environmental exposures and looking at their outcomes, I was able to apply principles of environmental counseling to help determine if it would in fact be beneficial. Furthermore, I explored the local relevance of environmental counseling by looking at it in the context of environmental harms associated with Guam and Lake Erie. One such impact is exposure to microcystins produced by cyanobacteria in the lake, to help develop the practice of environmental counseling. I believe that environmental counseling has the ability to positively influence human health and public health initiatives.

Department

Honors Program

Major

Biology

Second Major

Psychology

First Advisor

James Metcalf

First Advisor Department

Biological Sciences

Second Advisor

Jari Willing

Second Advisor Department

Psychology

Publication Date

Spring 4-27-2026

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