Each year on April 22, Earth Day provides individuals with the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment and support for the environment. This can routinely be seen through volunteering to clean up a physical area, working in a community garden, and/or committing or re-committing to recycling. College students have the opportunity, though, to expand their holistic focus on health and well-being as they examine their own environmental wellness.
Environmental wellness encourages individuals to occupy pleasant, stimulating environments that support well-being. College students should become aware of how their external environments affect them. They can strategically think through how they can redesign their environments to more effectively support and/or reinforce their needs.
Rakow and Eells (2019) identified that one of the most influential and often underutilized resources on a college campus to support college students’ health and well-being is time in nature. How are you encouraging your student to take some time and be in the moment and utilize the many green spaces on the Missouri Western State University campus as a tool to de-stress from the many aspects of their college lives? When we embrace environmental wellness, we find balance in our hectic lives and create those pleasant environments that will positively influence all aspects and dimensions of our health and well-being.
Submitted by: Dr. Brett Bruner, Assistant Vice President/Dean of Students
