This presentation explores the relationship between community engagement and environmental education, and the ways in which both practices can be oriented towards a building an empowered and active citizenry.
The presentation draws upon the speaker’s work as an urban designer and resilience planner, in New Orleans and in other communities threatened by climate change and sea level rise. Projects such as the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan (2011 to 2013) and Resilient Bridgeport (2014 – ongoing) reveal structural challenges associated with community engagement for resilience planning and climate adaptation efforts. The speaker will connect these challenges to the long-running discourse around civic participation and the role of the citizens in shaping public policies, community development, urban planning, and urban design.
The presentation also draws upon the speaker’s work as co-director of Ripple Effect, a program through which local educators, water experts, and designers bring water issues into New Orleans classrooms through design-based and standards-aligned curriculum. Ripple Effect arose, in part, out of planning efforts such as the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, and the belief that present-day resilience planning and climate adaptation are vital subjects for classroom-based learning.
Results/Conclusions
Since its founding in 2014, Ripple Effect has developed “water literacy” curriculum that is design-based and aligned to state and national science standards, covering topics ranging from urban hydrology to coastal erosion. In addition, Ripple Effect has reached over 800 students, piloted new curriculum development practices, teaching practices, and educational tools, and also led the transformation of a schoolyard in Central City, New Orleans, to address frequent flooding with rain gardens, and to provide an outdoor play and learning environment built around irises, cypresses, and groundwater wells.
Insights and practices from Ripple Effect are relevant to the work of design firms and public agencies working on resilience, climate adaptation, and infrastructure projects.
For example, Ripple Effect has worked to provide teachers without backgrounds in design or water with the knowledge and resources to implement Ripple Effect units in their classrooms. This yields lessons for train the trainer models of community engagement. Likewise, Ripple Effect has developed units of instruction and classroom activities that ask students to practice science and stewardship. Those efforts yield lessons for advancing community engagement practices that build knowledge and empower citizens.