How to tell a More Effective Story about Environmental Education

Okay, well, maybe we'll go ahead and get started. Again, I want to just welcome you this morning or this afternoon to CAE's monthly webinar series. I'm Lacey Edens. I'm the program coordinator for the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education. And today we're going to be talking about how to tell a more effective story about environmental education. And next slide, please. And just before we jump into things, if you're not familiar with CAE, our mission is to advance environmental education in Colorado by fostering collaboration, mobilizing support, and driving excellence. So, we work with educators all across the state of Colorado to reach about 800,000 learners in Colorado. And one way that we hope to drive excellence in the field is through our monthly webinar series. So, we try to choose topics of interest to the EE community here in Colorado with the goals of sharing and sparking ideas, improving our practice, and also just connecting with one another. And this is a free monthly member benefit to CAE members. I did want to just mention a couple upcoming events that we have. On April 9th, we are hosting our spring EE, calling it an unconference, kind of hosted and organized by the Western Slope EE organizations. So, this will be a great chance to just come and do some connecting, some networking, it's going to be very open and informal, just based on session topics that are of interest to you all. We also have on April 13th is our April webinar, which is a video watch party of a newly released video called Empowering Young People with an All Careers Approach. It was actually created by a high school student here in Colorado. So, really excited about that one. And then we also have some certification office hours, April 14th, in advance of a April 23rd certification portfolio deadline. So, we have all of that information up on our website and we hope you will join us for another event as well. And I know we're all experts and familiar, very familiar, too familiar with Zoom, but just a couple of reminders to just please keep your line muted while others are speaking. Everyone's doing a great job at that so far. But please, please use the chat function. We'd love to connect with you, whether that's through, if you have a question or a resource to share, you know, a light bulb moment, please share those things in the chat to connect with one another. And if you haven't already chatted in your name and organization or where you're coming from, that's a great way to connect with each other as well throughout the day. You will receive the recording. So, if you're not a note taker or you want to just sit back and take it in, just know that you'll get that recording later this week. And so, I want to begin our time together by acknowledging our history of colonization and oppression and that it is still continuing today. What we know as Colorado today was the traditional home of the Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and the Pueblo tribes, the Shoshone tribes, and the Ute nation. And historically, environmental education has been tailored to white communities and the contributions of black, indigenous, and people of color have been excluded from our narrative. Black, indigenous, and people of color have vibrant, rich histories and cultures that contribute to our field, and we all have the responsibility to continue working to change the systems that continue to allow injustice and inequity to exist. And with that, I think I'll turn it over to Katie. Great. Thank you so much, Lisa. I'm so excited to see everyone here today. Thank you for joining us and excited to share this new resource that we have here with you. So, as Lisa mentioned, I'm the director of the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education, and I am not a communications expert, but have been going through this process and learning about some of these communication tools for the last year. So, excited to share what we have learned in this process. So, today, we're going to run through a pretty high-level overview of what's in the framing guide and this new tool that hopefully you can use in your work. So, we're just going to talk a little bit about what is framing and why framing and why we went this route of creating this tool, and then dive in a little bit to the tools and how you can use them. And then, hopefully, we'll have some time at the end to talk a little bit about how we can best support you in using the tools. So, this guide was created as a collaboration with the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education and Environmental Education of New Mexico, and we worked with an organization called the Frameworks Institute to create the guide. And you can find the guide, the full guide, to dive into and dig into at our website, cae.org slash eestory. And just to tell you a little bit about the Frameworks Institute, they're a nonprofit research institution, and they do tons of research into what are the cultural models that we all have in our brains and how does that affect communication and how can we tweak our communication to really move forward and create change in whatever issues that we are thinking about and trying to move forward. So, and I pulled this directly from their website just to give a little brief on what is framing and what they're talking about when they say a framing guide. And so, framing is the choices that we make in what we say and how we say it. So, how we're telling our stories. That includes what we emphasize, what we explain, and what we don't say. Frameworks talks a lot about how whenever we tell a story, if we don't connect the dots, the people, the listeners will connect the dots, and they may connect them with things that you want them to be thinking about, and they may connect them with things that you don't want them to be thinking about. And so, it's really important to think about everything that we include in our story. So, just a few assumptions before we dive into the tools. Again, know that we're not experts in this. We're learning the process as we go, but wanted to share what we're learning with you. So, all of the things that are in the framing guide can continue to be improved, and they can be used in different ways, and they work the best when you take them and incorporate them and change them and think about the best ways for you to use them. So, know the guide isn't perfect, and we can always improve on it, but hopefully it has some helpful tools. And this is really about a way of communicating, and a lot of these practices are things that we probably do some of the time, but maybe don't do all of the time, and are things that we can just be more intentional about. I also just want to note that we use the term environmental education throughout the guide, but I really think that the tools are probably applicable to a lot of overlapping initiatives and sectors, and whether you identify as environmental education or place-based education or sustainability education, I think a lot of this will be useful across those different fields. So, definitely think about this as EE+. So, where this initiative really started was with Colorado's Collective Outcomes Initiative, and this is a project we've been working on for about four years now to really think about how we could tell a more impactful story about EE through collective evaluation. And over several years of meetings, we pulled folks together to talk about what do they want to achieve with environmental education, and what are the outcomes they're looking to get at, so that we could develop some frameworks for collective evaluation. And the five buckets of things that pulled out of that were that most of our outcomes fell into one of these categories. We were using EE to achieve outcomes in conservation. We were working to improve pre-K through 12 education, and that was a big outcome area. Positive youth development was another one, social justice, and health and wellness. And so, take just a minute and at the top of your screen, I think on some devices that may be on the bottom, but you should have a toolbar that has an annotate button. Pick a stamp or use a tool and just mark on the screen, where do you feel like the outcomes you're working towards fall? Are you working towards conservation, pre-K 12 education, positive youth development, social justice, or health and wellness? And you can click more than one box. Some of us are definitely working towards multiple. Looks like we've got folks working towards outcomes in all of the different areas, but lots in that top row, positive youth development, pre-K 12 education, and conservation. And when we think about what outcomes we're working towards, a lot of times that influences what audiences we're talking to. We may be talking to a funder in conservation who really cares about conservation, but doesn't totally understand how environmental education connects and makes a huge impact in that area. They may be looking at other areas of conservation. And so how do we connect the dots? And so this is what we brought to the Frameworks Institute. And we said, these are the audiences that we're talking to. They may not know a ton about environmental education, but they care about these things. And we also care about these things. So how can we connect the dots and make sure that we're communicating about how environmental education helps get to these five outcome areas? And so that's what you'll see as a thread throughout the guide as you dig in. I'm going to go ahead and clear our screen. Lisa, can you clear the screen? Thank you. Awesome. So we really went this route around framing because these connections between all of these impact areas are poorly understood with a lot of the people we want to talk to and with the general public. Because Frameworks Institute is a research-based institution, all of the tools that they're giving us have been researched and they've found to work with the general public and to help navigate around some of the cultural models that we have in our heads. We're also hoping that this might provide a shared strategy across many organizations that we can really think about how we work together to strengthen and expand EE across the country and beyond. And so just really hoping that this tool can be useful and another tool in the toolbox to help us have that unified voice about environmental education. Just to dive in a little bit to those cultural models that I mentioned that Frameworks really has studied a lot of, I pulled out just a few of them and there are definitely more. And so definitely something to dig into and learn about how these models impact how we talk about environmental education. But I wanted to share a couple examples that really impact how we talk about EE. One is a cultural model of a learning hierarchy. And that means for the general public, and this is not true for everyone, but across the general public, a lot of folks really have a frame where the things that happen in the classroom are the most important. And the farther away that you get from the classroom, the less important those things are. And that makes things like field trips and after school programs in environmental education become extra and nice to have instead of something that everybody needs to have. And that's a dominant way that people think and something that we need to navigate around when we're talking about environmental education and how can we showcase that all of these places of learning are important. So that was something they had in mind when they dove into these tools. Individualism is another thing that plays out really strongly when we think about how we communicate about environmental education. And that really relates back to how we talk about environmental education as a solution. And for a lot of people, they default to when we think about any issues to that being an individual responsibility. So, oh, kids aren't getting environmental education because their parents didn't sign them up or because the teacher didn't want to do it. Or things that are based in an individual. Rather than thinking about this as a systemic issue and how we all need to be thinking about systemic ways to ensure that all kids have access to opportunities in EE plus activities. And so that's something you'll see play out throughout the guide. Another one is the us versus them thinking. In that, like, oh, environmental education is for those kids that like science. Or the people that are outdoorsy. It's for them. Rather than for being something that's important for everyone. And so, again, really trying to think about how do we use language that flips that switch and starts thinking about it on a more comprehensive level. And then the last example I pulled out is this invisible process. And I'm sure many of you have had the experience of applying for a grant where someone wouldn't fund staff time. And they want to fund the program and they think it's great. But maybe they don't have a clear enough understanding of all the things that go into creating a program. Why you would need some of those things in the background. Why training for environmental educators is important. Why funding appropriate salaries is important. All of those things. Those are kind of invisible processes for people. And when we don't explain all the things that are needed to really make something happen, people make assumptions about what's really needed. And so, that's another kind of important thread that you'll see throughout the guide. So, if we broke this down into three really basic steps, frameworks kind of bases it in these three steps. Do you start with why? Do you explain? And do you move towards solutions? And again, these are things that we probably all do. But maybe not as intentionally as we should. I know for me personally, when we started doing some of this coaching with the Frameworks Institute, I've always heard you should start with why. That's something I know in my head. But when we started looking at all of our communications about environmental education, there were a lot of times I was not doing that. And so, really taking a step back to think about that and how we might do that was really, really helpful. And they gave us several values that we could plug in that have been tested that we'll take a look at that help get to that why. Explanation can take a lot of time. And so, one of the tools that they gave us to help us explain some of these processes in environmental education was different metaphors that we can use. And connecting to what things that people already know and have frameworks for in their brains can help explain some of those invisible processes. So, we'll look at a few metaphors that they have tested and suggested that we could use. And then finally, really thinking about how we frame solutions and those as scalable solutions that make sure that whoever you're communicating with feels like they're part of the change, that change is possible, and that we need to do that together as a society, as a community. So, the first recommendation they gave us was really making sure we provide clear definitions of environmental education. And when you say the words environmental education, a picture generally pops up in people's minds. But it doesn't mean it's necessarily the whole picture. Or they may have a part of what environmental education looks like in their brain, but maybe not the whole thing. And when they say provide a clear definition, they don't mean like an academic definition. They just mean explain what you're talking about and be very clear when you're talking about environmental education. And so, they took this piece of language here, this is something that we had written, and they made some suggestions for us. So, in this statement, to develop an environmentally literate population that is able to solve environmental and social challenges, EE must be a part of our nation's curriculum. And they suggested that instead of saying EE must be a part of our nation's curriculum, we change that to say we must integrate field trips, hands-on science, and other outdoor activities, make it super tangible what we're talking about. These are the things we'd like to see as part of the curriculum. So, the more that we can make whatever we're talking about in the moment super tangible, the more it's going to help us. You also notice that in the first one, it just makes a statement. EE must be part of our nation's curriculum. In the second one, they really highlighted that we, trying to get back to those scalable solutions that we're all involved in together, we must integrate these things. And so, making sure that we're pulling out those types of that type of language. The second recommendation that they gave us goes back to kind of those three steps of framing. And how do we paint a big picture of why it matters to all of us? And the tools that they gave us were shared values. And they gave us three different values that we can plug in. One is future preparation. And that's that as a society, we can prepare for whatever is coming in the future by equipping ourselves with these rich experiences, wide ranging skills, and deep understandings. And that was this value is something that they see is really helpful when talking to folks who care about positive youth development, folks that care about K through 12 education, health and well being and conservation. So, this works in a lot of different scenarios for what we're trying to achieve or who we might be talking to. And this is something you can pair with other values as well. The second value that they gave us was human potential. To reach our potential, we need to nurture a range of skills and interests and help realize everyone's gifts. Really helpful for K-12 education and for talking about health and well being. And then finally, for conservation, the value of protection and how preparing for the future means protecting the people, places, and planet we all depend on. And when you look at these, you'll notice there isn't a value specifically used to talk about social justice and the access and opportunity of environmental education. But you'll notice it's embedded in each of these. In each of them, we're talking about as a society, how we're doing this together, how we realize every single person's unique gifts, or the things that we all depend on. And so, that language is kind of embedded throughout in that everyone needs these opportunities. So, you'll see that kind of as a thread. And as an example of one of these, you'll see we had a communication that said everyone deserves the opportunity to have meaningful outdoor experiences. Because when people connect with nature, we all benefit. And using that value of future preparation, they really changed that around. And you'll notice in the before statement, we didn't really explain why. We just said people all benefit. But by adding that value of future preparation, that explains why. It's because we want to best care for and sustain the world for future generations. Very simple tweak, but makes a big difference. They also cautioned us against using words like deserves. It was something that they thought could trigger thoughts and cultural models in people's heads about who deserves what. And since we don't know what cultural models are in anyone's head about what that looks like, they felt it was pretty helpful to avoid words like that. The next recommendation gets back to that second step. Explain key processes and cause and effect relationships. And they gave us three metaphors that would be helpful in helping to do that. One is cultivating connections. This is one we probably already use without even knowing it. And comparing what we're doing to growth and nourishment and using a lot of cultivation terms to really help people see how that this is supporting lifelong growth in folks. And so thinking about how to really build in those words, particularly when we're talking about positive youth development and education, this is a very helpful metaphor. Health is one of those things that falls back on a cultural model that health means absence of illness is a lot of where people go. But when we're talking about health, we're definitely talking about it in a different way. And so in order to navigate that cultural model, they suggested a metaphor of solid foundations and how we think about health as being something that's the product of a lot of different sectors, institutions, and people. And a dependable foundation needs different supports, things like green space, quality learning opportunities, and EE can supply some of those solid foundations. And so through their research, they found that that's been really helpful to help people understand how EE or other similar things connect back to health. And then another great one for education, particularly, is this metaphor of wiring up and using some language around electricity. And thinking about how we can energize learning by really establishing connections between the places, like nature centers, zoos, museums, that really help ignite what we're passionate about. And bring those back to the classroom and how EE can help ensure that knowledge and skills flow easily back and forth between those different places. And that helps combat that idea that the farther away from the classroom you get, the less important it is, and helps make the connection that those are both important learning spaces. So you can see an example here of language that we used is that EE provides passion and interest for learning, creates these meaningful experiences, and helps students grasp new information more effectively. And using the wiring up metaphor, they inserted a lot of that electricity language. Environmental education sparks curiosity through this extensive circuitry of learning sites. It helps knowledge and skills that students gain in one place easily flow into new context and helps make that connection between, say, a field trip or off-site learning site and back to the classroom. One thing they also noted is that language that spark or power up is really effective and more effective than language like provides to students. Because thinking about something sparking or powering up assumes that those students already have those skills and knowledge inside of them. And that as EE providers, we're igniting it rather than we're giving them something. And by using language that indicates that we're giving students something, they indicated that we might trigger some thinking about what innate skills certain students have over others. And so by avoiding that language, we can avoid some of those assumptions. Another recommendation was really around how to use inclusive language. And so one tool that they gave us around inclusive language was this tool of attribution of responsibility. And you can see the statement that they took out of one of our communications was that a recent study showed that high school students of color are up to 19% less likely to apply and enroll in a college-level science program. And they tweaked that and changed it to say we do a much better job of supporting white high school students to apply and enroll in college-level science programs than we do for students of color. And the first statement allows the listener to make up whatever reasons for that being that they might think of. And we don't know what cultural models might be existing in folks' heads that might be, they might be thinking, well, they're not as interested in college-level science programs, or students of color might not be as good at science. And we don't want to trigger that kind of thinking. So by switching the type of language, we can really think about how it's about the systems of support that we're providing, not about the students themselves. And so this was something that I know I've done, and definitely I'm on the watch for that now. This is a good recommendation. Another tool they gave us for inclusive language was the metaphor of charging stations. And this relates back to that metaphor of wiring up. You can use those in combination. But the idea of charging stations is that nature centers, zoos, museums, and other sites of environmental education are like charging stations that power up learning. Some families benefit from high wattage areas that provide lots of energizing opportunities, while other families have very little to plug into. And this unreliable grid means our system isn't as strong as it could be. But together, we can rewire it to eliminate dead zones and boost learning outcomes for everyone. And this was a great way to describe some of that access and opportunity differences for different communities, and how together we might be able to work on that system and provide, strengthen that system to make sure that it's available for everyone. The final recommendation was all about solutions. And so how do we make sure that we're building towards scalable solutions that we can implement together to see what we want to see for environmental education across the world? And so they really recommended thinking about scaled up solutions. There's a lot of text on this page, so I apologize for that. But you can see the original text is very general. We need a better and more coordinated education and outreach efforts at every level. Whereas the second, when they reframed it, they said, we need a national program to support and strengthen every community's capacity. They highlighted exactly what that national program would do. So it's going to fund education, it's going to provide teacher training. Whereas the first one said, and teachers should find more ways to bring climate change science into the classroom. And so really kind of taking on like, again, that systemic lens, and how do we think about the system, rather than individuals taking action? How do we do it together? And again, this type of language isn't going to work for every communication. But when we can do this, it can be really helpful in kind of switching that brain frame, that this is a systemic issue, and we need systemic solutions. So I would love to take a little bit of time. I know I just ran through that super quickly. That's a lot of information. So we will definitely make sure that you get these slides. So if you want to dig more into the text, you can. And this is something that, at least from my personal experience, reading the guide and hearing about the strategies is great and helps, but really practicing it makes a huge difference. And you start to see how you can use some of these strategies in different ways. So I'd love to put us in small groups, maybe of about three. And how would you change this statement? It's just explaining what environmental education is. It's a process that helps people learn more about the environment and make choices that support a sustainable future for all. So we'll take six or seven minutes in small groups and chat about what are some of the tools that we talked about that you might be able to weave in and tweak and improve this statement. I'm just getting those breakout rooms ready. A few people around because some people are moving. All right. Well, I will open all rooms. And before we open the rooms, let's make sure this is in the chat. Yes, I did. Sorry. Yeah. Are we good to go then? I think so. Take about six or seven minutes. All right. Is everyone back, Lisa? All right. Well, hopefully you had a few minutes to kind of chat about what you might dig into and think about for this particular statement, what you might use. Feel free to type any great ideas you had in the chat about how to change that. And I'll share some of the suggestions that frameworks gave to us. And again, there isn't a right answer to this. There's lots of ways to use these tools. So, this is not a right or wrong answer. But these are a few of the things they mentioned to us when they reframed this for us. So, one, they replaced the word environment with natural systems we all depend on. Again, bringing in that we and helping understand why this is important to all of us. Why is the environment important to us? Because we all depend on it. They also took out the words make choices that support a more sustainable future for all. And this one was really interesting to me. Because making choices, making informed choices is language that I use a lot. But what they said was language about making choices triggers individualistic thinking. And so, it's about the choices that an individual makes rather than we need to make systemic changes to make sure that everyone has this opportunity. And so, they suggested something more like it's a process that helps people learn more about the natural systems we all depend on. Understand what we must do. And again, bringing in that we to interact responsibly with our environment and safeguard natural resources for future generations. So, again, the safeguard is pulling back to that value of protection. And really thinking about connecting back to those conservation ideas. And then future generations pulling back to that value of future preparation. They also eliminated the word sustainable and kind of gave us the feedback that not a lot of people have a good understanding of what that means. And so, that's a hard word to use. And again, this is not the right answer. But these are some things that we could be thinking about when we think about how we talk about environmental education. And I personally really have been working on bringing that we into everything that we write and talk about. And I'm seeing a couple things pop up in the chat. Some comments. One group didn't like the word process. Might be some other words that we could use there as well. Would love to see if you replace that with a different word. And thought about how you might use a different word in that space. Sounds like that was something that came up quite a few times. And another comment about how sustainability means different things to different people. And it looks like Estrella's got her hand up. I don't know if you want to take questions now. Sure. Hi. I'll jump in. Yeah. I just was going to make a comment about that process. And just that felt like something that just happens out there. But not something that like skilled practitioners and organizations are doing intentionally. And I wonder if that's kind of what resonated with other people. And so I was thinking about if that came up in your conversations. Because I see in the framework that, you know, they kind of do talk about what the key processes are in terms of the plot. But I wonder if that's just how that came up in the conversations. So we didn't actually frameworks didn't mention anything about the word process here. But I think they reiterated over and over and over again that unpacking those invisible processes is really, really important. So I think that's a really good point. And I think they would say, too, there are always ways to continue improving this. So that might be a really good word to think about. And I see somebody else in the chat commented that they use the wiring up metaphor to think about how it ignites and connects passions. All great words. That's awesome. Did anybody else have any comments on the process word? Let's see here. Alex, do you want to jump in? Sure. So in our conversation, brief though it was, we also had this dialogue around should environmental education even be included as part of the definition. So we ended up totally removing it. And like Danielle, I think we were all inspired by the wiring up metaphor. So we had language around igniting connections to nature and place is crucial for the development of individuals and communities. And that engaging in description of activities can lead to this action piece, which we did not get to. But yeah, we had some great conversations. Awesome. Love it. Estrella, did you have something to add? Nope. Sorry. I'll unraise my hand. Perfect. Awesome. Well, great. I love all of those thoughts. And again, this is not a one size fits all thing. It's you can't really plug and play it. And so depending on what your communication is, you may want to unpack those things. Or you may not have a lot of space and you're really picking and choosing what are the most important things to focus on. So I think it probably depends a lot on who your audience is and what you're trying to communicate. Would love to just spend a few minutes, we only have a few minutes left, chatting about how you see yourself using the framing guide and how we could support you in using the framing guide. One of my biggest takeaways was that it doesn't really make sense until you start using it. And then you start seeing all of these different things and what types of opportunities would help to start generating ideas and thinking about how as an EE community or an EE plus community, that we could help each other use some of these tools. And so I'll invite folks to just throw comments in the chat to either of those questions about how you see yourself using it. Because it might give other people great ideas. Or how we could think about how we support each other in using these tools. And you can also feel free either write in the chat or raise your hand and unmute and share out loud. But would love to hear a few things about what folks are thinking. I see a suggestion of a writer's workshop, which is great. I poked around looking for how to raise my hand. I couldn't find it. So I just unmuted myself. Oops. And I'll put my camera on too. Jump right in. We, well, we're in Wisconsin and we did a workshop last week or did a sponsor to talk with the League of Women Voters about science communication around climate change. But the woman who was doing the speaking, Dominique Broussard from University of Wisconsin is her, that's her, her discipline is science communication. And she referenced framing a lot, but really didn't go into depth. So this is great to have this like really, you know, kind of for at the level I'm using it, a deep dive into what that actually means with some really good examples about how to frame things. So your audience, you know, so you're sort of controlling the message and how your audience receives it as best you can. So this was really useful. Great. We're glad you could be here. Looks like there's a comment in the chat about how to use it with grant writing. I think there's tremendous use for thinking about how we use this to talk with funders, because funders don't always have a full picture of what environmental education is or some of the processes involved. So absolutely. Thinking about brochures, signs, websites, all great ideas. And Karen commented that there's still a lot to unpack. And I 100% agree. I think there's a lot in here. And for me, I've been kind of playing with this for a year now, and still feel like it's pretty new and still getting used to it. So absolutely. Great use for op eds as well. It's a great idea. Are there any questions in the last few minutes that folks want to questions or comments that folks want to throw out before we sign off today? If we contact Frameworks, can we get a little more specific information? So if you go to our website, you can find the full guide that breaks down all of these recommendations. So that's on our website. Okay. If you do go to Frameworks website, they have a ton of great resources. And I think Lisa put the link in the chat earlier. But just about framing, about how values work, about how metaphors work, and different types of metaphors. You can really dig in and dive in on their website. They have a lot of great resources. Great. I'll go to both places. Thank you. Great question. Well, definitely let us know if there are other ideas that you have that we can really think about. How do we start using this and sharing this as a field? We're super excited to launch it into the world and see where it goes. And so definitely want to keep talking and thinking about how we can practice together and learn more about how we communicate. So thanks so much for showing up today and spending this time with us and playing a little bit today and diving into using some of the framing tools. So, so appreciate all the work that you do. And hopefully we will see you on another webinar again soon. Lisa, anything we should mention before we close? I don't think so. I'll send a follow-up email with the recording and these links and just a short evaluation if you have a chance to fill that out. We always appreciate feedback and just want to reiterate Katie's appreciation for everyone's time today. Have a great rest of your week.