Research on Workshop Effectiveness

Christina,

I'm not sure about any such resources in Canada, but here in the US one good source of this kind of information--both workshops and basic evaluation--is probably any state university's cooperative extension service. I work for extension in Wisconsin, and am part of our Sustainability Team, so you might want to take a look at our website http://www3.uwsuper.edu/sustainability/ and see if there is information there, or feel free to contact any of the team members. Another US resource would be the National Network for Sustainable Living Education. Viviane Simon-Brown is a good contact there. If you'd like to reach her, please let me know and I'll send you her contact information.

Good luck!

Darien

darien simon
Community, Natural Resources, and Economic Development Educator
University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension
United States

Christina,
You might want to take a look at the University of Oregon Climate Leadership Initiative's "Climate Master" programs. The Climate Masters at Home program is a series of workshops focused on strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the household level through low and no-cost means (ie, primarily behavior change). We've got a handbook, auditing worksheets, have nearly completed a series of template powerpoints, as well as other materials. We're just transitioning to a new website, so not everything is up yet, but you can learn more about the programs at: http://climlead.uoregon.edu/node/67 or contact me at [email protected]
We've actually been working closely with Viviane Simon-Brown, mentioned above, in replicating these programs.

Sarah Mazze
Climate Master Program Manager
Climate Leadership Initiative
United States
http://climlead.uoregon.edu/

Christina:
The Northwest Earth Institute, based in Portland, OR offers "Home Eco Parties", www.nwei.org.
At an Eco-Party, the homeowner (or apartment dweller) invites several friends to their home for an evening of fun and learning. Checklists are mailed to these friends who are asked to look at the cleaning, eating, and lawn care practices in their own homes. The checklists are brought to the hosts' home where a trained volunteer facilitator walks everyone through the host's home to see how it "green" it is and shares ideas. Guests can use their own checklist to learn from the facilitator, the host & other guests on ways to live more simply and sustainably. The host need not be the perfect picture of "green" living; their home is just an example and place for folks to gather and learn.

Theresa Cross
MS RD CD
Clark County Public Health
United States

If you are interested, next June is the Air & Waste Management Association conference, held next year in Calgary. www.awma.org If you want to submit an abstract online, you can do so until Dec. 4.

Maggie Clarke
Maggie Clarke Environmental
United States
www.maggieclarkeenvironmental.com

You could try Living Smart - at www.livingsmart.org and http://livingsmartnetwork.pbworks.com/ for a wiki that has read only public access. The program was developed about 6 years ago jointly in Western Australia by Murdoch University, Southern Metro. Regional Council, City of Fremantle and The Meeting Place. As such the material needs some updating, and some adjustment for use outside Western Australia - but the model of workshops- fieldtrips- discussion- presentations and most particularly goal-setting and reporting back has been shown to be effective in many studies through Peter Dingle at Murdoch University since.

eustance 

Green Calgary offers a variety of workshops and courses, but I'm not sure what they have for an evaluation peice. You can view the list at http://www.greencalgary.org/workshops. The City of Calgary also offers a variety of workshops. Water Services offers Indoor and Outdoor water conservation workshops. These tend to be about 1.5 hours and are focused around our three main campaigns. Our indoor water conservation workshop, Tap Into Savings focuses on ways to reduce water consumption in the home. Drop, Peak, Repair: Leak Repair for Dummies, looks at fixing toilet and faucet leaks, and Be an Outdoor Hero looks at Water Wise Gardening Techniques. We also partner with Pest Management to deliver the Healthy Yards workshop (calgary.ca/healthyyards). Evaluation of these workshops hasn't typically been a key focus for us, but is something we're realizing is more important. Traditionally we've followed up each of our three campaigns with a telephone survey about the campaign as a whole, and while we get some data from these, only a small protion relates to our workshops. Currently we're looking at how to fill this gap and best techniques for following up with participants. If you would like to discuss this further please contact me.

Amy Carton
Water Educator
The City of Calgary
Canada
calgary.ca/waterservices