Edmonton Regional Community of Practice December Meeting WHAT WE HEARD Thursday, December 11, 2014. 12:00 – 4:00pm Muttart Conservatory, City of Edmonton Edmonton Regional Community of Practice October Meeting participants ACEE would like to thank the Edmonton Community Foundation for funding this initiative and the Muttart Conservatory for hosting the meeting. COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE BACKGROUND ACEE launched the Communities of Practice (CoP) program with topic specific groups in fall of 2012. The pillars of the program are: 1. Share – CoP members share their resources, knowledge and skills with others: as a result, CoP members become more efficient and effective. 2. Collaborate – CoP members collaborate on programs and projects that advance their work: they work together to overcome barriers, identify and remove program overlaps and gaps, create partnerships and synergies, and develop coordinated approaches to audiences and funders. 3. Celebrate – Success stories are shared and celebrated: all stakeholders are inspired and encouraged. 4. Influence – CoP members work to ensure that environmental education has a strong presence in curriculum and in practice within the formal education system. 5. Sustain – Communities of Practice in environmental education are valued, embraced, and sustained by the community. The two central questions guiding this CoP are: • What do you need to advance your own programs? • What can we do together to advance environmental education in the Edmonton area? 2 DECEMBER 11TH MEETING AGENDA • Welcome and Introductions • IDEA Gift Exchange • Environmental Literacy – Awareness to Action – presentation by Sharina Kennedy of Alberta ESRD • Collective Impact Model • Edmonton Regional CoP Inventory • Curriculum Update and preparing for the new curriculum • Upcoming Events/Sharing • Next meeting Attendees A big THANKS to everyone who attended. It is nice to see a mix of new and returning folks attend the meetings. • Alberta Council for Environmental Education - Kathy Worobec • Alberta Environment and Sustainable Development – Sharina Kennedy, Joanne Barwise • Alberta Parks – Isabella Hodson, Miquelon Lake Provincial Park • City of Edmonton – Joy Lakhan, Forestry, Beautification and Environmental Mgt; Jade Dodd, Muttart Conservatory; Shannon Myers • City of Spruce Grove – Caitlin Van Gaal • City of St. Albert – Meghan Myers • Devonian Botanical Gardens – Emma Ausford • Edmonton Naturalization Group – Cherry Dodd • Edmonton Public Schools – Greg Wongda, Science Consultant • Evergreen Foundation – Kathy Goble and Claudia Bolli • Inside Education – Pamela Learmond, Crystal Lumsden • Jerlynn Rycroft • Kassandra Medeiros • Natural Connections – Trudy Harrold and husband • Strathcona County – Erin Wildeboer With Regrets: • Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development – Karen Carle • Alberta Environment & Sustainable Development – Heather Robertson, Rob Harris, Glenn Gustafson • Strathcona County – Vanessa Higgins 3 IDEA GIFT EXCHANGE • Each person was asked to bring an idea of the most effective thing they’ve done to increase Albertans’ environmental literacy • Each person shared their idea in small groups and we placed the ideas on the environmental literacy tree. See the images below. 4 ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY – SHARINA KENNEDY, ALBERTA ESRD • Sharina presented some current research and work that the Alberta ESRD Education and Outreach group have gathered regarding environmental literacy and moving to action. • Environmental literacy is a broad definition and for a person to be environmentally literate they need all of the following components (Campaign for Environmental Literacy 2007 http://www.fundee.org/facts/envlit/components.htm) o Awareness – general awareness of the relationship between the environment and human life o Knowledge and understanding of human and natural systems and processes 5 o Attitudes of appreciation and concern for the environment o Skills – problem-solving and critical thinking o Action – capacity for personal and collective action • These are not necessarily a step by step approach beginning with awareness and ending with action – it provides an overview of all of the aspects of environmental literacy. • She provided examples for each component using Aquatic invasive species. • She also showed another model from the North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) that showed environmentally responsible behaviour as the goal with knowledge, dispositions and competencies as the key factors to achieve this. http://www.naaee.net/sites/default/files/framework/DevFramewkAssessEnvLitOnlineEd.pdf Page 17 of the document • She also discussed that awareness and knowledge and the right attitudes do not always lead to action – it is complex and there are many factors – she used blood donation as an example – we all had the awareness, knowledge and attitudes but not all of us donate blood – why not? • This led into discussions about the social context (social norms) and knowing your audience • “Nature connectedness” can be a predictor of environmental behaviour (Nisbet et at. 2009) • Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) – Doug McKenzie-Mohr – see upcoming events for some workshops on CBSM – Erin Wildeboar of Strathcona County had a great example about implementing their organic waste program. Sharina mentioned that often numbers 1 to 2 are skipped. 1. Select desired behaviour(s) and target audience(s) 2. Identify barriers and benefits (know your audience) 3. Develop strategies 4. Pilot, evaluate and revise 5. Broad-scale implementation • To encourage the behaviour you want you need to reduce barriers and increase benefits • The group asked some great questions and there were some examples shared of programs and things that have worked and why WORKING TOGETHER – COLLECTIVE IMPACT MODEL Kathy provided an overview of the Collective Impact Model. Collective Impact brings people/groups together, in a structured way, to achieve social change and it includes five components: • Common agenda – coming together to collectively define the problem and create a shared vision to solve it • Shared measurement – establishes shared measurement – agreeing to track progress in the same way, which allows for continuous improvement • Reinforcing activities – fosters mutually reinforcing activities – coordinating collective efforts to maximize the end result • Continuous communication – encourages continuous communication to build trust and relationships among participants • Strong backbone – it has a team dedicated to orchestrating the work of the group For more information check out: http://collectiveimpactforum.org/ 6 Working in small groups, the following questions were answered: What do you like about collective impact? • Support and shared experiences • Knowing you’re not alone • Community • Shared resources and knowledge • Inter-disciplinary (across sectors) and different lenses • Multiple perspectives • Strength in numbers • More diverse audiences being reached • Grants more accessible – more eligibility • Human power – more hands • Positive gains from listening and learning from others • Pooling of resources • People united will never be divided • Depth of knowledge/skills • Filling gaps • Working with political constituency • Big problems are systemic so helps look at a larger system • Collaboration to solve a problem – deliberate • Many different minds for one focal point – connect the dots • Positive stories • Novel ideas to reach a broader audience What would be challenges for our group? • Work distribution – evenly and fairly – how? • Input distribution – those with bigger programs/more dollars have a bigger say – how make input equal? • Different methodologies and approaches • Having common goals/key messages with different groups – determining the common agenda • Inertia – lots of people, big, how get it going • Passions conflict • Different experiences • Slow – not as efficient? • Management harder to get on board – not involved • May not include everyone’s perspectives • Need good facilitation and convener • Egos – proprietary • Tunnel vision – narrow minds • Involves an emotional investment that will have both positive and negative aspects to it. Different emotional investments in common problems – need to include emotions too • We all enter the collective with our own agendas (can pursue our own messages to the detriment of the collective). • Not everyone works in the same way – how to accommodate and work together • It is the same group (converted folks) – need broader perspectives • Looking for folks with different audiences that have the same messaging (different vessels for same message) 7 • Directives can contract for people from different organizations (messaging) What would be our common problem and vision? • Stewardship as a foundation – that foundational BASE is critical to moving forward • Pre-awareness – how do you make people aware that they aren’t aware (marketing) • Develop critical thinking ability in people so they can solve their own problems • BELONGING – everyone wants to belong to different effects/outcomes • Bigger infrastructure with which we are working – what exists doesn’t allow for targeted message/action. Must agree on what we want to accomplish – impediments to putting into practice what we preach • How do we get people to move up the ladder of environmental literacy? Connection to nature • We want people to experience a belonging with nature to CARE about the environment and human CONNECTION to the environment • A connection to nature/sense of belonging/need