Community Environmental Education for Urban AA Group

Dear Kate,

I suggest you have a look at http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/ and http://onedidit.com/login/.

Yours,
Martin KvK.

Kate,

Your query is thought proviking for me, and while I don't at all want this to sound critical, I need to take issue with how you are approaching your presentation in general. First of all, when you say "specifically targeted to this demographic", do you mean African American? Urban resident? Church-goer? I would urge you to have some preliminary conversations with whomever invited you to give the presentation, in order to understand that particular group a bit better. I would like to think that if your ultimate goal in giving the presentation is fostering sustainable behavior change, you will get further this way. At a fundamental level, the primary question in CBSM concerns identifying the barriers for a particular group in adopting a particular behavior or set of behaviors. It seems to me that your source for this information is the group itself, and/or someone who knows and represents it well. Beyond that, it is your task to pull together information and resources on opportunities to overcome these barriers. A great start is the community resource booklet you offered. Be sure to include locally-based programs that may be available, such as in-home energy audits, indoor air quality assessments, etc. Your local municipal agencies and local utilities likely publish information of this type. My work in cross-cultural communication confirms that, to be really effective, we need to mutually adapt - which revolves around conversations with the groups we hope to "convert" to sustainable behavior. Granted, this sometimes means more work, and a "messier" process - but I think relationship-based approaches will get us much further in the long run than using someone else's ready-made "curricula" designed for a cookie-cutter demographic.

Best of luck,
Jane Rosenstein

Hi everyone,

I apologize for the confusion. In my attempt to save space in the subject line of my last post, I used AA instead of African American. I am so sorry, and thanks to those who pointed it out to me. I teach an environmental stewardship class to young, urban, minority youth. I have 30 weeks to teach them, but just 1 hour to present the most important highlights to this larger group of urban residents. From my experience with my students and the fact that I also live in the urban core, I have several items that immediately come to mind as serious problems for this group. The first is the high rate of asthma, so I want to cover air pollution, idling, the safest way to wait for a bus to minimize your exposure to the fumes, etc. A second item is the lack of fresh, nutritional food choices. So I want to cover that and discuss CSAs and the downtown farmer's market (and which bus takes you there), as well as befriending a gardener in your neighborhood and being adventurous with food. One final thing that comes to mind is what I understand to be a high usage of Clorox to sanitize everything from clothes to dishes to surfaces. I want to deal with that including providing the recipe and a bottle of "clean air cleaner" developed by my EPA friend. Oh, and I'm also working with the City to provide recycling bins to those families that do not yet have one. So, what I am looking for are some handouts, websites, visual aids that deal with issues of particular concern for this urban demographic, that I could use to supplement the presentation. I'm looking for low or no-cost changes that these residents could make, and ways to lower the boundaries. I will be putting together a handout with nearby environmental resources. Thanks for your help! And I apologize again for my earlier post and the use of the acronym. I certainly didn't intend to offend anyone or waste anyone's time. I respect your opinions, and appreciate learning from you!

Kate

Kate,

I do some outreach and education on reducing household hazardous wastes, and use a couple of great publications distributed by our local (to Portland, Oregon) metropolitan services district. Details can be found at: http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=1400 If you want to give me your mailing address (and also avoid a long distance call), I can have two particularly good booklets - the Hazardless Home Handbook and Green Cleaner Guide - sent to you. Also, apparently the asthma program at Children's Mercy Hospital in KC is a leader in asthma treatment and prevention - maybe you could contact them for information and resources specific to your area, particularly on asthma rates in this area. There is a fine line here between seeming as if you're trying to scare people into changing behavior (sometimes works, often doesn't), or motivate them through the awareness of how prevalent a problem is. It sounds as if you have a lot of bases covered - recycling (be sure to talk about waste reduction too), transportation, food, etc. Remember to focus particularly on the actions which will encounter the fewest barriers, and take it from there.

Best,
Jane

Kate,

May I suggest you create a list of as many ways as possible for them to take action - big and small. A great book is the Low Carbon Diet - filled with easy to impliment ways to reduce your carbon footprint http://www.empowermentinstitute.net/lcd/index.html Create the list and encourage them to put in on the refrigerator, they should highlight different things they could do, then check them off as they do them

Recycling at the Curb
Starting a compost
Air drying clothes
Purchasing items from a thrift store or garage sale
Carpooling
Adjusting the thermostat
Installing a digital thermostat
Insultating the water heater
Insulating the house
Organic Food (apples, tomatoes, etc.)
No meat one or two days a week
Reusable Napkins
Buy a Fair Trade item (coffee, cocco, etc)
Turn off the water when brushing
Install a rain barrel
Plant a rain garden
Plant native - reduce mowing
Use an electric mower
lots more

Marta Keane,

Recycling Program Specialist
Will County Land Use - Waste Services
58 E. Clinton Street, Suite 500
Joliet, IL 60432
815-774-4343
[email protected]

Mel,

I merely tried to give examples of a wide variety of "green" concepts - it was not my intent to write the presentation for Kate. Here's some ideas from someone else: http://living.apartments.com/housekeeping/10-easy-fun-ideas-for-renters-to-get-their-green-on/

I agree that it is always a good idea to be sensitive to the audience, their age, education, experience, economic circumstances, etc.