Facilitate school-based watershed education programs through interactive resources and communication among groups using an interactive website Continue reading →
Best Education Practice: Community 
See below for: research findings about outreach with a community.
For the Community, the learning experience:
- Builds on locally existing skills and resources.
- Supports a person who takes responsibility for managing or leading the process, and relies on quality group planning and facilitation techniques.
- Is flexible in response to both process and conditions.
- Provides participants with feedback about the results of their actions.
- Generates and makes use of data about the local condition.
- Takes into consideration the community as a whole, including: socio-political, economic, historical, and cultural influences.
- Evolves from work with a coalition or group.
- Builds effectiveness through linkages to other communities, partners, and resources.
- Takes place close to the location where people practice a behavior of concern.
- Reaches people in multiple ways.
- Relates to long-term community vision and goals.
- Provides training to increase skills needed to accomplish goals identified by the group.
Findings Navigation: Browse by Audience; Browse by Theme; Browse by Best Education Practice; Browse by multiple topics
Struss, R. (2004) Finding 1
Work with a collaborative to provide consistent storm water messages across neighborhoods in a large city. Continue reading →
Stepenuck, K., L. Green, E. Herron, A. Gold, K. Addy, & R. Shepard. (2004) Finding 1
Facilitate volunteer water quality monitoring efforts through sharing success stories and communication among groups using an interactive website and listserve Continue reading →
de Bruijn, T. J. N. M. and P. S. Hofman. (2000) Finding 2
Emphasize company commitment to pollution prevention activities and investment of adequate time and money.
- Self-assessment has produced measures of superior quality to those produced by quick-scan methods completed by a consultant.
- When companies invest more time in the pollution prevention project, the options produced are better tailored to the company and likely to have a more profound impact.
Lowrie, K. W. and M. Greenberg. (1997) Finding 4
Be patient in your efforts to reach small businesses.
- Small businesses are a difficult audience to reach – limited staff, busy schedules, financial constraints; many will not take the time to return phone calls that are considered non-essential and many do not read mailed solicitations.
Cooper, D., Giebink, B., & Olson, K. (1995) Finding 1
Focus on a geographic area:
- Define the geographical area where environmental intervention is crucial (Cooper, 1995).
Grudens-Schuck, N. (2000) Finding 1
Support stakeholder engagement more fully by anticipating a political dimension in addition to a focus on subject matter. [This emphasizes Cervero and Wilson’s (1994) democratic approach to program planning whereby adult educators talk openly about social and political aspirations of interested parties in addition to content matter objectives.] Continue reading →
Boiarsky, G., M. Long, et al. (1999) Finding 2
Focus the content for outreach materials on cost savings, such as when and where pollution prevention is as cheap as or cheaper than traditional techniques. Include facts and figures. Continue reading →
Lowrie, K. W. and M. Greenberg. (1997) Finding 2
Stress benefits such as efficiency or better relations with government, for businesses not primarily concerned with public image. Continue reading →
Lanyon, L. E., Kiernan, N.-E., & Stoltzfus, J. H. (1996) Finding 2
Address farmers’ perceptions of risk. Acknowledge the tendency for farmers to be “adverse to additional risk “. That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably Continue reading →
