Module 3: 5 Step Process for Investigating Environmental Issues

Researchers in the field of environmental education suggest a five-step process as a framework for addressing environmental issues (Pennock & Bardwell, 1994): Let's take a closer look at each of the five steps:

STEP 1: Choosing an Issue

Educators select environmental issues relevant to their subject matter and make judgments about which ones are open versus settled. They choose issues important to explore from multiple, legitimate perspectives. Educators frame questions that generate inquiry and discussion on these perspectives. Often it helps to start with issues that are less contentious and build to politically and emotionally charged issues. 

How you and your learners choose an issue will depend on many factors, including time, resources, and age-appropriateness. Environmental issues can be explored at any age, but they will look very different. An issue for a kindergarten class might be, “How should we treat insects on the playground?” Likely, there will be multiple perspectives to explore in how that issue is solved. Some students may want to step on them and others may want to protect them. Older students can engage in investigation of much more complex issues. While it’s not always possible, the more the learners can be actively involved in generating a list of possible issues and in choosing the issue to investigate, the better. It is important that your learners see the issue as "their" issue and not just "your" issue. There are many strategies for generating an inventory of issues and choosing an issue. Here are some: 

• Generating an Inventory of Issues... 
  • Conduct a brainstorming session with students to find out what issues they are concerned about. 
  • Have students bring in articles/videos about local issues for a designated period of time. 
  • Have students conduct Internet searches. 
  • Have students interview other members of the community, including other students as well as their parents and other adults. 
  • Conduct a walking tour of the school and the neighborhood. 
    
    
• Choosing an Issue... 
  From the list of issues generated, have students: 
  • Develop criteria for choosing and issue and use the criteria to examine and rank the issues 
  • Vote 
  • Lobby each other and then vote 
  • Reach consensus 

TASK 2: Review the issues you identified in Module 1. Climate change is an example of an environmental problem that is causing impact on a global level whereas drought might be a regional environmental problem related to climate change. In your course journal, identify the local, regional, and global aspects of the environmental problems you identified. What might be age-appropriate ways/scales to explore the problem and/or issue with your learners? 

TASK 3: In your course journal, write 1-2 paragraphs about considerations that will be important in your school or organization for how you would select an issue to investigate with learners. What things might you want to consider?

STEP 2: Clearly Identify the Problem, Stakeholders, and their Values

This step involves facilitating the students thoroughly researching the issue; gathering information from a variety of reliable sources; and identifying and analyzing a variety of viewpoints. Too often, students want to jump from identifying an issue to generating solutions without taking this important step of researching the problem and considering different perspectives. Part of investigation of an environmental issue is identifying the environmental impacts; however, another equally important component is investigating the human dimensions of the issue - who are the stakeholders, what are their values, what are acceptable solutions to them. Many times, investigation of environmental issues does not dive deeply enough into the human dimensions of the issue. You will see a focus on this in this step and the following steps of the 5 Step Process. 

To analyze the issue, students need to know… 

• Who are the interested parties? 
• How are they affected by the problem? 
• How do they perceive the issue? 
• What do they value? 
• How would they want the issue resolved? 

Ultimately this step will require gathering info from several sources, clarifying biases, sorting fact from opinion, challenging assumptions and thinking critically about the consequences. 

TASK 4: Read the newspaper article, "Well-known ski town is in a fight over sheep and affordable housing." After reading the article: (1) identify the players who are affected by or have a role in the issue, (2) suggest how they stand on the issue, (3) hypothesize what each player cares about (values); and (4) suggest what each group would propose as a solution. You can create similar and multiple "issue analysis" exercises for your students using local newspapers or periodical articles.

STEP 3: Searching for Solutions

Searching for solutions engages students in understanding alternative views and in exploring a range of alternative solutions. At this stage, learners need time to think creatively and to weigh possible solutions by revisiting the problem definition stage. At this stage, learners may move back and forth several times from searching for solutions to redefining the problems as new information comes to light. 

A List of Possible Solutions can be generated by: 

• Drawing on information gathered through research about the issue 
• Considering how interested parties in the issue would like it solved 
• Creating original ideas

STEP 4: Evaluating the Options

Once students have generated a range of solutions, it is time to critically examine those solutions in order to narrow the list down for potential action plans. Students will need to be guided through the consideration of the "pluses and minuses" of each possible solution. Here are some questions to use in facilitating the students' evaluation of the possible solutions: 

• What are the values and interests served by each solution? 
• What possible outcomes does each solution hold? 
• For each solution, what are the barriers that might stand in the way of the desired outcome? 
• Does the solution directly relate to the problem as the students defined it? 
• To which solution is it most feasible for the students to meaningfully contribute? 
• What resources and time would be required? Is the solution a "win-win" or a "win-lose"?

STEP 5: Taking Action

Taking action involves students in bringing certain possibilities to life. Teachers and students can be involved in the action-taking step in personal, education, or political ways. For example: 

• Students can share what they learned with others.
  Students might choose to prepare presentations for other students and teachers or create lessons to teach younger students about the issue. Students can make personal commitments. Students may make personal pledges to change one aspect of their lifestyle to positively impact the issue and share their pledge with others. 
  
  
• Students can choose to help other organizations.
  Students might work toward resolution of their issue by raising money, distributing flyers or helping to survey the community. 
  
  
• Students can conduct direct action projects in their schools or community.
  Students have monitored water quality in local waterways, set up school recycling and composting programs, testified at state hearings, made recommendations to county commissioners or school committees, and petitioned for new ordinances. 

TASK 5: True stories are powerful teaching tools for approaching environmental issues. Success stories can introduce students not only to the issues themselves but also to different ways of approaching them, people and organizations that make solutions happen, and the complications they overcome as they do so. Success stories are a way of giving students positive images of solving environmental issues. Again success stories can be found in the newspaper, magazines, TV shows and other media. 

Do an internet search to identify a success story related to an environmental issue of your choice. In your course journal, answer the following questions: 

• What motivated the individual or group in this story to take action? 
• What types of action did they undertake? 
• What barriers and challenges did they face? 
• How did they overcome these barriers? 
• How might you use this story with your learners? 

1. Persuasion - An effort to verbally motivate human beings to take positive environmental action as a function of modified values. 
2. Consumerism - An economic threat by an individual or a group aimed at some form of behavioral modification in business or industry or some conservation mode of behavior with respect to goods and/or services 
3. Political Action - An effort aimed at persuading an electorate, a legislator (or legislature), or executive governmental agency to conform to the values held by the person or persons taking that action 
4. Legal Action - Any legal/judiciary action taken by an individual and/or organization which is aimed at some restraint preceding some environmental behavior perceived as undesirable 
5. Eco-management - Any physical action taken by an individual or a group aimed directly at maintaining or improving the existing ecosystems 
6. Interactions of any of the above 

(A Paradigm of Environmental Action, Hungerford &Peyton)

• Describe an example of a specific action students could take that fits each of the categories. 
• Which of these action categories do you feel most comfortable facilitating with your students? Why?
• Are there any types of action you could facilitate with your students?

Practicing the 5 Steps

TASK 7: Choose an environmental issue to investigate. Select an issue relevant to you or your students. See several examples below: 

• Should wolves be reintroduced in Colorado? 
• Should cities in Colorado require homeowners to remove their lawns to conserve water that would otherwise be used for landscaping? 
• How should Colorado regulate the use of fracking in oil and gas drilling?
• Should plastic waste be addressed with individual action or government regulation?
• Should the government enact a carbon tax on businesses?
• As the use of alternative energy increases, can huge solar installations contribute efficiently and safely?

In your course journal, write a one page summary addressing the following: 

• Describe the environmental problem and issue. Why did you select this issue? 
• Identify the players (at least 3) and their positions, beliefs and values. Cite your sources of information. 
• Did you recognize any bias in the information you found? 
• What solutions would the stakeholders you identified propose? Are there any additional solutions that should be considered? 
• What solution would you recommend based on your research? How would it benefit/hurt the stakeholders you identified? 
• What is/are the most responsible action(s) to be taken concerning your issues? 
• What would the consequences (both positive and negative) of action be? 
• Is there sufficient evidence to warrant action on this issue? 
• What steps would need to be taken to take action on this environmental problem or issue?

Reflecting on and Applying the Process

After learning and practicing the 5-Step Process, a concern you might have is time. Sometimes we just don't have enough time to go deeply into each of the 5 steps in the process. In these cases, you have a couple different options that will all depend on your context, your learners and your learning goals. You could go through the full process at a cursory level. One educator used the 5 Step Process to talk about behavior on the trail (not exactly controversial, but still helps learners develop the same skills and useful to help younger learners build issue investigation skills). She had a student that was pulling bark off trees. The question (or issue) became "Is it important to leave the bark on the trees or not." They defined the issue by identifying the stakeholders and talking about what those stakeholders care about. The student was pulling the bark off the tree because it was fun. The tree might want to keep the bark because it protects it from fire. The insect living on the tree might want the bark on the tree because it gives it a place for shelter or food. They briefly talked about other solutions to pulling the bark off the tree. They brainstormed a couple of options and then talked about which one the student might want to do and what they thought the results might be. The whole conversation took less than five minutes but helped learners start to develop the skills of looking at multiple perspectives and weighing multiple options. 

You might also, depending on your context, just practice with one or two of the steps that make the most sense for your learning goals. While learners need opportunities to practice all the steps and skills- they don't necessarily need to practice them all every time. When you have a limited time frame, you might be choosing the issue instead of having learners choose it. You might just want to focus on identifying stakeholders and what they care about or just focus on brainstorming solutions. With some issues (again, context dependent), you might have learners take some of the steps and have an example of a real community facing the issue. For example, students might go through the steps of thinking about stakeholders and their needs and generating solutions, but not dig into analyzing the options and actually take action. You could provide an example of a community and explain what they decided to do in the situation and what the result was. Or, if you are a non-formal educator, these could be great opportunities to provide teachers with extension activities that they could do back in the classroom to continue the process of going through the 5 steps. There are probably a million more examples of ways that you can help students build the skills that will help them be able to apply the 5 step process, even if you aren't doing it all together in one learning experience.

 TASK 8: Reflect on each of the five steps. What are the strengths of this process? What are your concerns? In your Course Journal, write a 1 paragraph summary of your answers to both questions. 

TASK 9: In your current practice, which steps of the process are you currently engaging in with learners and which steps would you like to incorporate more. Write a one paragraph reflection in your course journal.