Discussion Questions: Community Centered

Discussion Questions for Key Characteristic #1: Community Centered

  1. Symone talked about this project as setting a standard for partnerships in the way that they approached collaborating with the school district. What things have you or your organization done that worked really well in developing partnerships? Where have there been stumbling blocks?
  2. Nonformal educators: How do you develop an understanding of the priorities of your local community and partner school district? Formal Educators: How are you understanding the priorities of your local community and your nonformal partners? 
  3. Symone also mentions time as a need for developing partnerships and building trust. What has this process looked like for your organization? How do you find the time? What communication strategies are more or less effective? 
  4. School districts, especially teachers, have faced major challenges due to COVID. What strategies are you or your organization using to be present and supportive of student programming, while also being compassionate of the situation?
  5. Symone talks about how they partner with a number of universities, many HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) to educate their preservice and environmental science major students on the MWEE approach and to provide opportunities for the students to serve as role models for middle school students. Throughout the region, members of the environmental education field have shared their struggles with increasing staff diversity and Symone describes the representation of those students as being critical to her middle schoolers thriving (by seeing themselves in their educators). How are you or your organization thinking about and addressing this in your staffing? 
  6. Thinking about community centered in the context of local issues (things that actually matter to community members, including students), how are you or your organization thinking about centering program topics on community needs and interests?

 

Last modified: Thursday, September 15, 2022, 11:59 AM