An Academic Workshop with Sustainable Northwest

General Project Information

Overview

Sustainable Northwest, over the past twenty six years, has been successful in managing natural resources in what they call the “radical middle” of the economy, environment, and community. The goal of our project is to connect Sustainable Northwest with students through a workshop —using the organization as an academic resource while creating two-way dialogue between different generations from different parts of Oregon. Specifically, we wish to connect the organization with we would seek to include older high school students, undergraduate students, and graduate students with an interest in natural resource management issues. Throughout the course of the workshop, we hope to have Sustainable Northwest share the methods in which they have exercised environmental engagement in the natural resource sector — going into detail about the intricacies of their projects.

Partner

Goals

Our identified goals for our Engagement Project with Sustainable Northwest are the following:

Create a space with a successful two-way dialogue between current students and those who currently work in the natural resource sector, like those with Sustainable Northwest
Allow for the opportunity for students currently interested in natural resource management or other environmental issues to learn about the natural resource management from those currently involved
Motivate students to get involved in or learn more about natural resource management through inclusive dialogue, conversation in which they know their opinions and knowledge are taken into consideration
Encourage the inclusion of the perspectives of current students in the natural resource management sector today

Status

Project Components

What (Issue)
Who (People)
How (Engagement)
Cited References

What (Issue)

Sustainable Northwest has proven themselves to be successful at facilitating environmental engagement in the “radical middle” of natural resource management —pioneering solutions for multi-party environmental issues ranging from wood supply to river restoration. Not only do they have experience dealing with the immediate stakeholders of their core natural resource projects (i.e. farmers, tribes, rural communities), but they have expanded their engagement to reach various industries and governmental actors. With this taken into account, we consider Sustainable Northwest an incredibly valuable academic resource for students looking to get into the field of natural resource management or environmental studies as a whole. We decided to center our project around an academic workshop. Here Sustainable Northwest will work with organizations outside of their current operations (specifically urban organizations) to deliver a workshop-style curriculum to students across upper high school to college. As Sustainable Northwest largely operates within rural communities, this project also aims to connect rural and urban communities via the sharing of environmental knowledge.

Reflecting back to the “What” of environmental engagement, we realize that the “post-truth” is relevant to the world we live in today. Thomas B. Edsall speaks on post-truth in the political arena —claiming that Democrats and Republicans “view the same reality through a different lens” (Edsall 2020). He explains that dissimilar perspectives on a shared reality lends itself to growing political polarization —in that engagement and progress is difficult when various groups interpret one truth in multiple ways. The political perspectives of the left and right exist in different realities. Of course, this idea of post-truths and multiple realities extends beyond the political arena, and into a plethora of environmental issues.

Because of challenges like conflicting perspectives, community natural resource management efforts with goals for biological conservation and socioeconomic development often produce deficient results (Ebbin et al. 2010). Sustainable Northwest, however, has been successful in facilitating environmental engagement between groups whose political and environmental perspectives may conflict. As seen —for example— in their work in the water management and river restoration project, Sustainable Northwest worked with 26 entities —addressing a range of perspectives in order to produce a successful outcome (dam removal). As we have learned in ENVS 295, these connections are critical as engagement across boundaries may lend to the co-production of valuable knowledge (Jasanoff 2004). Reflexively, these complex, real-world engagements are often left outside of the classroom. The skills, strategies, and projects needed to make Sustainable Northwest function are of interest to a wide range of students who are interested in pursuing a career in the environmental discipline. Our project aims to connect students with Sustainable Northwest in order to supplement students’ in-class curriculum with knowledge that is more focused on skill-based, real-world, and multi-perspective.

Who (People)

The Pacific Northwest hosts a multitude of different types of people, with their own views, experiences, and values. It is no different than the United States as a whole, where beliefs can be largely separated into what is known as The Six Hidden Tribes of America. Across divisions of class, race, gender, religion, education level, political affiliation, and more, successful engagement looks to create an environment where everyone can both speak and listen to others in a search for commonality. In this environment, open communication is encouraged so that one can both educate others on their opinions and experiences, along with learning from others. Engagement is truly successful when a group or individual who is affected by the issue at hand, known as a stakeholder (Luyet et. al 2012), is not left out of the conversation.

For Sustainable Northwest, including stakeholders in the conversation is a key element in how their organization operates. With a goal of including local interests in conversations surrounding natural resource management, the “who” of Environmental Engagement is especially crucial. This inclusion is on trend with the growing tendency of environmental groups in the western United States to believe it is important to try to find consensus on issues at a local level instead of searching for it through going to court (Ellsworth 2001). The majority of stakeholders that Sustainable Northwest communicates and collaborates with tend to be from rural areas, and a part of local economies that depend on industries such as timber, agriculture, and ranching. This large representation of rural communities in Sustainable Northwest comes from the fact that they tend to focus on groups in the natural resource sectors, where people in urban areas tend to be less involved with. The higher proportion of rural stakeholders, while having the benefit of being more involved in natural resource management, also leads to little representation of groups that are more congregated in nonrural areas.

A group our team recognized as underrepresented in the “who” of Sustainable Northwest, as mentioned in a previous post, is the younger demographic. While this is largely because there is simply a lower proportion of younger people in rural areas, we do think that young people have things to both learn and teach about their perspectives on a field that they will soon have to take over. Because of this, our team decided to choose young people, aged 16-25, as the “who” of our engagement partnership with Sustainable Northwest. Specifically, we would seek to include older high school students, undergraduate students, and graduate students with an interest in environmental issues. With environmental education being everchanging, current students are learning about natural resource management in a vastly different way than their predecessors currently in the field (Maestas 2002). As the field of natural resource management gains more and more postgraduate students, the way that it operates will evolve as new ideas and practices are implemented. Our team believes it is important for young people interested in getting involved in the field, and for current employees in natural resource management, to start communication as early as possible so younger generations can get involved in something they will soon be in charge of. To ensure a more diverse range of viewpoints, we aim to seek out students from a range of urban to rural schools, as well as students who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and those who grew up outside of it. The student demographic is diverse, hosting a range of political viewpoints, gender, socioeconomic status, race, et cetera. We aim to include a range of students that would represent the Oregon student demographic. By including young people, we believe that they can learn valuable lessons about natural resource management and important tools in how to get more involved, as well as being able to express their own ideas that may differ from the current majority seen.

How (Engagement)

When thinking about an engagement project that we might start with Sustainable Northwest, our team wanted to build upon their existing infrastructure and philosophy rather than begin anew. The current infrastructure includes programs covering forests, water, energy, and rangelands, with their mission being to function at the intersection of these natural resource programs and groups of people involved in each. These are essentially the organization’s “what” and “who”; the who being those in which Sustainable Northwest engages with, and the what being the conversations and projects they help facilitate. When analyzing the “who” of Sustainable Northwest – especially in the context of the unexotic underclass – we spoke in length about who the organization leaves out of the equation; that is, who they do not include in their development initiatives and the decisions they make. Sustainable Northwest’s projects have been exclusive to established groups within natural resource sectors and as a consequence of that, their initiatives may lack input from younger generations or those living outside of their rural bubble. This brings us to the purpose of this post — the “how” of our engagement project. How might we be able to bridge this gap between those already operating with the realm of Sustainable Northwest’s initiatives and those who are not?

To foreground our understanding of how we might go about engagement, we began by looking at the different models of environmental engagement, which outlines three models of engagement: the classical (deficit) model, the framing model, and the contemporary (dialogic) model. While the first two models leave little room for communication and rely almost solely on the dissemination of information, the dialogic model involves both speaking and listening in an effort to reach an understanding. Because of how crucial it is to Sustainable Northwest, our team has decided to ground our proposal in the dialogic model in hopes that it can breed fruitful results. After all, engagement might only be considered truly prosperous when those who are affected by the issue at hand are not left out of the conversation (Luyet et. al 2012).

Another key aspect, along with our discussion of these models, was our examination of a particularly interesting article written by David Broockman and Joshua Kalla, titled “Durably Reducing Transphobia: A Field Experiment on Door-to-Door Canvassing.” The article is interesting in that it demonstrates the effectiveness of using something like the dialogic model when attempting to engage with others. It indicates, above all else, that through continued and worthwhile communication, bias and prejudice can be alleviated (Brookman, Kalla 2016).

Over the course of our proposed workshop, Sustainable Northwest could perhaps share how they have found success in using multi-party engagement in what they call the “radial middle,” a philosophy that sees them trying to produce community-driven solutions in the face of change and conflict. It is our hope that this workshop – using the dialogic mode of communication – can inspire the possibility of Sustainable Northwest working with / partnering with organizations whose main participants are outside of their bubble of operation, bridging the gap between the organization and the people who may not be involved with their current projects. Across divisions of class, race, gender, religion, political affiliation, education, and more, we hope that opportunities for a workshop – and perhaps even a few partnerships – might create an environment where everyone can speak and listen to each other in search for commonality and understanding, doing so in a manner that was not possible before. By implementing this approach, listening will provide important background context prior to communicating with so many different actors, or even provide important follow-up information on how the topics were received or acted upon.

Turning this project proposal into a reality for Sustainable Northwest is no easy feat! Perhaps the greatest reason why lies in the fact that there exists an urban-rural divide in Oregon; that is, nearly sixty percent of Oregon’s population lives in and around the Portland metropolitan area. This means that with an organization like Sustainable Northwest, whose work is situated in rural Oregon, more than half of the state’s population is not having their concerns taken into account. Consequently, this can also lead to an environment where opinions differ greatly. In situations like this, which may be a reality were our proposal to be acted upon, dialogic approaches to communication may be the best way to engage and facilitate conversation towards action (Dickinson 2005). Using this model, Sustainable Northwest can put an even larger emphasis on involvement, ensuring project understanding and input during decision making.

Our project is, of course, contingent upon Greg Block and the whole organization being excited and willing to participate in such a thing. In communicating with Sustainable Northwest, we hope to ensure that our project is a worthwhile commitment with ample opportunity for fruitful results!

Cited References

Broockman, David, and Joshua Kalla. 2016. “Durably Reducing Transphobia: A Field Experiment on Door-to-Door Canvassing.” Science 352 (6282): 220–24.
Dickson, David. 2005. “The case for a ‘deficit model’ of science communication.” SciDev.Net. June 27, 2005.
Ebbin et al. 2010. “Community Natural Resource Management: Promise, Rhetoric, and Reality, Society & Natural Resources,” 13:8, 705-715
Edsall, Thomas B. 2020. “Trump Is Waiting and He Is Ready.” New York Times. (link)
Ellsworth, Peter, and Judith Ellsworth. 2001. “Involving Students in Natural Resource Decision-Making Groups.” Clearing House 74 (3): 137–40.
Jasanoff, Sheila, ed. 2004. States of Knowledge: The Co-Production of Science and the Social Order. London: Routledge.
Luyet et al. 2012. “A Framework to Implement Stakeholder Participation in Environmental Projects.” Journal of Environmental Management 11: 213-19. (link)
Maestas, Jeremy D. 2002. “Natural Resource Management for a New Generation.” Wildlife Society Bulletin (1973-2006) 30, no. 1: 278–79.

Project Progress

Input Received
Assessment
Outcomes
Next Steps

Input Received

As of April 21, 2020

Being as our project aims to connect so many individuals and organizations, it is important for our group to pursue input from the people involved. The input regarding our project will largely revolve around the main organizations involved in the project —Sustainable Northwest, educational Institutions (specifically its students), and the other organizations in Portland. These various groups will have important input as to how the workshops will be set up.

To begin, it would be integral to receive feedback from Greg Block —the president of Sustainable Northwest. Specifically, we would like to inquire about what they feel is important to include in the workshop academically. This would help structure a curriculum that the workshop would follow: what skills they believe are important, which of their projects they think would display good examples. Additionally, as our project aims to facilitate discussion between both Sustainable Northwest and students, we would like to know what the organization would like to learn from students entering the field. Unfortunately, Greg has expressed that he and his team are tremendously busy with work regarding the COVID-19 pandemic and are unavailable to meet and discuss the project.

The second group we would like feedback from are students looking to get into environmental or natural resource professions. We may want to know what they, as students, want from a workshop like this. Specifically, we would like to learn what they are curious about in regard to how organizations like Sustainable Northwest operates. For example, we would love to know if students are curious about prerequisite skills that are required for employment, a specific natural resource project (water, wood, energy, etc.), or whatever else may be of interest. We would like to meet with Professor Jim Proctor about which methods would work best in deriving student input. We believe that for now, it would be best to conduct 5 minute interviews with our peers in ENVS 295.

Lastly, we believe it would be helpful to get input from a faculty member at Lewis and Clark College (outside of our course instructor, Jim Proctor). We think it would be beneficial to receive feedback from Professor Jessica Kleiss of the Environmental Studies department at Lewis and Clark. As someone who has worked with students and various organizations off-campus, we believe she may be able to help revise, tweak, restructure or polish the details of our project. More specifically, we are hoping to get feedback and advice regarding any organizations in Portland to help facilitate the workshop, which schools and programs we should look into participating and any other details or concerns that may arise from the conversation.

Assessment

After creating, developing, and eventually proposing a partnership project to be done with Sustainable Northwest, there is a question of how our group will go about assessing the success of our endeavors. We have laid out a number of goals for this project, all of which we hope can be met throughout the duration of our partnership with the organization. In terms of assessing how well these goals are met, there are two ways that we can do this: summatively and formatively. The former is done to determine to what extent project goals have been reached at present, while the latter is done to help better reach project goals in future.

As a reminder, our group has proposed an academic workshop, one in which Sustainable Northwest might work with organizations outside of their current operations to deliver a workshop-style curriculum to students across upper high school to college. In terms of a summative assessment, the success of this can be measured in a few ways! First and perhaps foremost, the number of participating students active within each workshop – and perhaps even the amount of recurring students – can be a great indicator of the relative success of our project. This method of assessment is generally a good way to allow for the opportunity for students currently interested in natural resource management or other environmental issues to learn about the natural resource management from those currently involved (and conversely, allow those currently involved to gain students’ perspectives as well), checking off one of our goals.

In terms of a formative assessment, the easiest way to gauge how we might complete our goals in the future is through a series of surveys. The first survey, which would be taken directly after the workshop’s conclusion, would see the participants answering questions concerning the content of the workshop, the organizations involved, and of course, how much they enjoyed the way the workshop was handled. Another survey might be distributed later on to assess whether or not the participants have become involved with any of the organizations present at the workshop. This would allow us to assess whether or not we have created a space with a successful two-way dialogue between current students and those who currently work in the natural resource sector, like those in Sustainable Northwest. It would also encourage the inclusion of the perspectives of current students in the natural resource management sector today.

Lastly, remembering that over the course of these workshops we also hope that new partnerships might be forged between Sustainable Northwest and the other organizations who might be working hard to deliver such a workshop, keeping track of how many new, fruitful projects are created as a result of having a new audience can be a wonderful way of assessing the impact of an academic workshop.

Outcomes

Next Steps

General Project Information

Project Components

Project Progress

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