This module enables students to identify the freshwater components of the hydrologic cycle and connect them to the basic need of all human beings for equal access to clean freshwater. This is accomplished by framing the water science within theories of environmental justice defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as "the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies."

The movement toward sustainable communities has brought into focus the centrality of food in our everyday lives and its myriad social, economic, and environmental connections. The purpose of this module, Food as the Foundation for Healthy Communities, is to position students to have engaging conversations about the social, economic, and environmental relationships between food, food producers, and health outcomes. The framework of this module is built on the platform of the food-energy-water connections in the context of community empowerment and environmental justice. This module offers students an opportunity to examine and refine their own perceptions regarding food production, good food access, and health outcomes. This module's design and format makes the conversation about good food and better health outcomes an attractive one—for both teachers and students. Students will see individual and community empowerment through sustainable food production efforts and food networks based on a range of partnerships. Engaging students in meaningful conversations and exchange of ideas about the relationships between food and health outcomes will inspire students to participate in the capacity building of their own communities with the goal of seeing fresh, affordable, accessible foods and improved health as commonplace. Participants will evaluate primary and secondary data sources, interpret findings, and synthesize information. The grand challenge is for human beings to return to a way of living that acknowledges that we will always be dependent on the natural environment and its offerings.

The Lead in the Environment module is designed to integrate multiple disciplines to inform solutions to the ongoing burden of childhood lead poisoning. This module addresses the systems dynamics of lead within the human body, in individual households, and in communities and regions over time. Students use real data reflecting the distribution of residual lead in the environment and the incidence of elevated blood lead levels to explore patterns of disparities in both risk and health outcomes. Students evaluate policy strategies that have been developed across multiple agencies and scales and recommend appropriate courses of action to reduce risk of exposure.

Extreme storms have major impacts on the communities that lie in their path. Many climate models predict increased frequency of heavy rains and icing events, freak storms, and severe weather within the continental United States as a result of ongoing climate changes. In many locales, risk factors for such economically damaging events are no longer accurately predicted by historical trend analyses. In addition, such variables as time of year, tidal conditions, and temperature can exacerbate the severity of a storm's impact. A community's ability to respond to a major storm, and to exhibit resilience afterwards, depends on its capabilities in risk assessment, management, and preparedness. Because of the rapid pace of changes within the global climate system, preparedness for future risks now also depends on understanding that old paradigms about risk may no longer apply. New risk models must take into account complex and incompletely identified geosystem feedbacks. Community resilience, therefore, increasingly depends on adapting to an uncertain level of risk from weather extremes.