ENVS 295: Environmental Engagement
Lewis & Clark College | Spring 2020
Curtis Hall
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Course Summary
ENVS 295 is about examining different forms of engagement and how to use engagement practices to help create dialogue across boundaries, something that has become increasingly critical and has shown success in bridging gaps as issues have become more and more polarized (Broockman and Kalla 2016). The class started out by taking a “Reconnaissance Trip”, which entailed visiting a number of different organizations around NW Oregon in an effort to see real world examples of different forms of engagement. With these in mind, we returned back to the classroom setting and started work on the "What", "Who", and "How" of engagement, such as understanding how to better define stakeholders (Luyet et al. 2012). Additionally, we developed a better understanding of Effective Action. These different theoretical backgrounds were then applied by student groups to various engagement organizations throughout NW Oregon (some of which we had already visited earlier) in order to get a better understanding of these theories in practice, as well as a deeper understanding of the organizations themselves. My project group worked with the Hood River Forest Collaborative in order to develop projects to help define their stakeholders and create outreach to new members within the community, something that they have struggled with in the past. Work CitedEngagement Partnership
One important part of ENVS 295 is an environmental engagement partnership with a Portland-area organization. The page linked above offers information and resources I helped compile for my organizational partner this semester.Engagement Project
Building on the engagement partnership above, our team developed a related engagement project in collaboration with the partner. The page linked above offers details on our engagement project.My Course Posts
I've done a series of posts throughout the semester related to readings, our partnership, our project, and my thoughts on environmental engagement. See below for all posts I've published, in reverse order by date.
In order to achieve these goals, we have devised a number of assessment strategies to identify ways to improve the project and ultimately help determine whether or not the project met our end goals. In order to figure out if the public speaker events and increased social media presence increased […]
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Increase the number of participating stakeholders in the monthly Collaborative meeting To build greater understanding of the fundamental science surrounding the questions the Collaborative is trying to address More constructive communication between members of the Collaborative when they disagree
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Our project aims to increase the public’s participation with the Hood River Forest Collaborative, and to help them identify and engage with stakeholders. We plan to do this by helping the Collaborative develop an online presence, through which they can host events, share knowledge, and engage in outreach to invite […]
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When developing engagement practices, determining the specific issues to be addressed and the stakeholders that need to be invited to the table is critical important. Just as important as these two steps is determining how to best foster engagement between these identified stakeholders -who may have competing values- towards the […]
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Throughout ENVS 295 we have closely studied many aspects of engagement, including specific ways to focus engagement with the aim to make it more successful. One of the critical steps to better engagement practices is to focus on labeling and including stakeholders (known as the “Who”) who may otherwise be […]
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After doing a lot of preliminary research about the Hood River Forest Collaborative, our partnership group brainstormed a number of potential future projects between Lewis and Clark’s 295 students and the Collaborative. We then discussed these ideas over a ~40 minute Zoom call with Andrew Spaeth, who is the public […]
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Overview As can be seen throughout many aspects of our everyday lives, polarization has become increasingly more common and more intense. This is especially true for any issues thought of as “political”, which includes any number of problems that have arisen due to climate change. This polarization has made it […]
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How are Environmental Ideas Communicated? How should we communicate? What is most effective? What makes an approach more successful? There are three outlined methods of environmental communication, which present different engagement strategies with varying degrees of success. The first is the Classical (Deficit) Model, which posits that the public’s lack […]
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Stakeholder Identification In order to give stakeholders a voice in any project they must first be identified. There are many ways of identifying individuals and groups as stakeholders (Luyet et al. 2012). It is incredibly important to properly identify stakeholders, as they are the ones most impacted by the outcomes […]
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Is Post-Truth the new normal? Issues of Post Truth In his article, “Trump is Waiting and He Is Ready“, Thomas Edsall writes in the New York Times about an increasingly polarized political and rhetorical world plagued by the notion of post-truth. Using Donald Trump as a situated example, he details […]
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What is Effective Action/Altruism? Effective Action/Altruism was developed as a concept in order to better organize the work needed to help others in a way that is most efficient. Within this idea, projects are efficient when they are: Great in scale Highly neglected Highly solvable While effective action does […]
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Our Visit In this ever fracturing world, opportunities for meaningful engagement seem to have become fewer and more far between. With this in mind, our Environmental Engagement (ENVS295) class embarked on a two day field trip around the Columbia Gorge and Willamette Valley in order to meet and discuss with […]
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