When Elgin High School environmental science teacher Deb Perryman caught the attention of PBS documentary producers, she kept it.

Harry Wiland, a director and producer of multiple PBS documentaries, enlisted Perryman’s help to tell the story of how Elgin could revitalize itself by changing its environment.

Elgin will appear in the four-part PBS documentary series “Designing Healthy Communities,” which takes a look at the link between the ways we build cities and how that impacts our health.

Wiland and Richard Jackson, a professor at UCLA who created the concept behind the series, wanted to study how cities might retrofit their design to meet the changing needs of the community.

The documentary takes a look at how Elgin is reclaiming its core since the Elgin National Watch Company closed in 1964, leaving 7,000 people suddenly unemployed, Wiland said.

“Suddenly, it was gone and it decimated the core of the community,” he said. “They have come back and are realizing that sustainability and green jobs are an answer.”

Elgin makes its appearance in the second episode, “Rebuilding Places of the Heart.” The episode follows Perryman’s senior class in 2009 as they created, promoted and put on a workshop where students gave presentations about sustainability initiatives in Elgin.

Perryman’s environmental science class started talking about how their environment — not just the trees and rivers, but also the city itself — is designed affects their health.

To get a better idea of what others in the community thought, they partnered with the Elgin Chamber of Commerce to send out surveys. They received 500 responses that confirmed the same concerns students had, Perryman said.

They decided to design and promote a workshop, where the students teamed up to make presentations on environmental sustainability.

Students presented on topics such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, local watersheds and water conservation. One team helped people in Elgin find out if they had cisterns on their property, which are waterproof containers that collect rainwater, usually underground.

But the end result was disappointing.

“We had maybe 20 people show up,” Perryman said. “The kids had done all this work and we’d spent a couple days passing out flyers and not many people came.”

One student, who worked passionately on her project comparing cities’ tree density, breaks down during her presentation and cries as the situation hits her: she did all this work so three people could see it.

“That part is pretty powerful,” Perryman said.

The students’ workshop may not have caught the attention of Elgin at large, but the experience stuck with them.

The former students, many now juniors in college, met up to watch a preview with Perryman and talk environmental science. After all, many chose to head into the field after high school graduation.

“The really cool thing is, in that class, there’s a bunch of kids either going into the medical field with an environmental hint, or urban planning or environmental public health,” Perryman said.

Elgin residents can get a sneak peak at the documentary at the Gail Borden Public Library. Part of the “Designing Healthy Communities” documentary will be show at 6:30 p.m. Jan. 17 in the Community Rooms A-B-C on the first floor. Wiland will present the featurette and some of its stars, including Perryman and her former students, will be in attendance.

There is no set date yet for when the series will air on PBS.