ENVS 295: Environmental Engagement
Lewis & Clark College | Spring 2020
Helen Guyton
Course Summary
The spring course Environmental Action and Engagement is designed to inspire students to critically engage with their surrounding peers and organizations tackling environmental issues. So far in the course, we have been navigating our way through the complexity of understanding the different stakeholders involved in multifaceted engagement, and we have spent a lot of time diving into how these readings and formulating responses based on our thoughts in regards to the readings. The largest part of the course, however, is the creation of a partnership with an NGO or organization that is working to engage with the community around them, by focusing on current issues. By reaching out to this organization small groups of students will formulate ideas for personal engagement projects that will run alongside the organization's main missions.Engagement 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.
Since the beginning of our communications with Crossing Party Lines, our partner organization assessment of success/goals has something that has interested us, even in regards to CPL’s own success. This was something which we discussed at length with our contact at CPL co-founder Lisa Swallow, who had an interesting take […]
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As with any and all projects there comes a time when outside input is needed, besides the thoughts and musings of the project creators. Having come a long way with our proposed environmental engagement project partnered with Crossing Party Lines, it was time to gain some input and insight from […]
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The organization Crossing Party Lines is a conversation oriented organization that targets the political divide in the United States between Republicans, Democrats, and anything in between through discussions about politically relevant topics. One of the books on the CPL moderator training resource list writes “The hard truth is, too often […]
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Over the past semester, we have been working on an engagement deep-dive to better understand practices of effective engagement and action. We explored the three different constituents of effective engagement – what, who, and how – so that we could move forward with our partner organization Crossing Party Lines and […]
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Crossing Party Lines (CPL) is a conversation/meetup based organization that focuses on bringing together individuals from the polarized sides of the Republican vs. Democrat divide in the United States. Being that the nature of this organization is so rooted in conversation, the “conversation towards action” motto that we have been […]
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I have always had a strong personal connection to environmental action and engagement. In high school, this took shape by organizing our school’s #Fridaysforfuture movement founded by Greta Thunberg, helping to start the first agroforestry project on campus, and limiting my consumption of single-use plastic items like cups or straws. […]
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“How” The last two weeks of ENVS 295 has consisted of discussions around the “what” and the “who” of environmental engagement. While identifying the “what” (the environmental issue) and the “who” (the participants or stakeholders) is significant, means of connection between the two are dependant on the “how.” Effective engagement […]
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The Self & Stakeholder Identification We began week seven by starting to peel back the layers of our own identities and biases that impact how we approach environmental action and engagement. This can be an important step to understanding how to communicate across differences with stakeholders in engagement projects. The […]
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Post-Truth in the NY Times We are seeing now more than ever that we are living in a world where many truths and lies perforate popular media and news sources. In the NY Times article, “Trump Is Waiting and He Is Ready” Thomas Edsall discusses the “polarization of reality” in […]
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Effective Altruism We began week five of ENVS 295 by reading posts on “Effective Altruism,” a movement working towards engagement and action that brings the greatest positive impact. Advocates for Effective Altruism (EA) believe that although there are many organizations and individuals taking action, few are truly effective. Although effectiveness […]
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Introduction In order to translate our classroom studies of Environmental Engagement into real-world ‘engagement,’ and what that actually looks like, we went on a two day trip through various areas of Northwest Oregon, ranging from Mount Hood National Forest regions to the Willamette Valley and prominent farming regions. In doing […]
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