Chapter 1: Working Toward Equitable and Just Outdoor Science Organizations
How can we create and sustain equitable and just working and learning environments?
Embedded Files
Every person has a right to experience, enjoy, and benefit from regularly spending time learning in the outdoors. These benefits include the healing power of the outdoors on mental and physical well-being, academic benefits for learners, feelings of awe and connection, among others (Ardoin et al., 2020; Ardoin et al., 2018; Powell et al., 2019; Stern et al., 2014; Thomas et al., 2019). Every person has a right to these experiences at home, at school, in nearby parks and open spaces, and in the grandeur of our state and national public lands. Black and Indigenous people and additional People of Color in the United States have often been excluded from access to this right. (While this Guide focuses on the context in the United States, there are similar patterns in other countries.) These groups have been excluded from participation in mainstream outdoor and environmental science education, environmental conservation, and environmental advocacy movements. This has greatly reduced the power and effectiveness of those activities as it has increased inequity and injustice. As a field, we can learn and practice how to create and sustain an equitable and just working and learning environment within our organizations both to begin to remedy these inequitable and unjust circumstances and to improve the effectiveness and relevance of our organizations.
Definition of Terms
It is critical to establish shared definitions of key and often nuanced terms when writing about, reflecting on, and discussing equity and justice. Following are the key terms, along with the definitions, that BEETLES uses:
Equity: The guarantee of fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for individuals and the absence of barriers that prevent the full participation of certain groups. The principle of equity acknowledges that there are historically underserved and underrepresented populations and that attention to these unbalanced conditions is needed.
Inclusion: The act of creating environments in which any individual or group feels welcomed, respected, valued, and supported to fully participate. An inclusive culture embraces differences and offers respect for all people through the proactive creation and implementation of policies, practices, and actions.
Justice: Equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment, impacts, and outcomes for all.
Cultural relevance: Effectively reaching and engaging communities in a manner that is consistent with the cultural context and values of that community. Cultural relevance also implies that an organization is continuously working to improve its ability to be culturally relevant.
Diversity: Psychological, physical, and social differences that occur among individuals, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, socioeconomic status, education, marital status, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, mental or physical ability, and approaches to learning. A diverse community or organization is one in which a variety of social and cultural characteristics exist.
Note: The terms diverse or diversity are sometimes incorrectly used to only refer to communities or individuals that have characteristics “outside of the norm”—most often, People of Color or individuals from the LGBTQ+ community (e.g., it is common to hear, “We have a diverse school group coming” when they mean to say, “We have a school group coming that is comprised of a majority of Black students.”) A group of people can be diverse in many ways; there are no diverse individuals.
White supremacy culture: White supremacy culture refers to the dominant, unquestioned standard of behavior that prioritizes and centers whiteness and the comfort of White people. These standards and ways of functioning evolved from the United States’ history of White supremacy and racial oppression and are embodied by the vast majority of institutions in the United States.
Note: There is a common tendency for people, particularly White people, to confuse this term with references to White supremacists and other hate groups, which represents a small subset of voices, as opposed to White supremacy culture that, in the United States, we all participate in.
These definitions have been adapted from the UC Berkeley Initiative for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity; Justice Outside; and the Racial Equity Tools Glossary.
There are many more useful terms. Refer to the Racial Equity Tools Glossary for additional definitions for terms related to equity and justice.
The outdoor science and environmental education field has been working to prioritize equity and justice for a long time. There are conferences with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) strands, JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion) committees, DEIB (diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging) initiatives, and consulting groups that specialize in supporting individual organizations in these efforts. However, despite the many organizations related to the outdoors and environment that are led by People of Color, and the presence of People of Color working throughout the sector, the mainstream environmental field is still largely seen as white-led and white-dominated (Johnson, 2019; Sherman, 2020; Snow & Romer, 2014).
BEETLES work toward equity and justice.
There’s a reason this section wasn’t in the original version of this Guide—we didn’t know enough to write it. Although BEETLES always held equity and inclusion as important values for the project, and we thought we were addressing it well in our materials, we now know that we missed many opportunities to address equity, justice, inclusion, belonging, and cultural relevance in our materials. When we included strategies to address those concepts, we didn’t make those connections explicit enough. BEETLES has since invested considerable time and resources into learning more and doing better. We have much more to learn. We have learned from partnerships with organizations and professionals who have been doing this deep work for many years, such as Justice Outside (formerly Youth Outside), Equity Meets Design, National Equity Project, Othering and Belonging Institute, YES Nature to Neighborhoods, Crissy Field Center, and more. We’ve documented our reflections, discussion, and revision process through several blogs, including:
As a result, mainstream outdoor science education has largely failed to meet the needs of communities of color by not acknowledging their historic and lived experiences (Sachatello-Sawyer & Fenyvesi, 2015) and by upholding the outdoors as places of White privilege that contribute to mistrust of environmental organizations among communities of color (Finney, 2014). More just and equitable environmental learning experiences require that outdoor science education organization leaders and practitioners invite, recognize, value, and attend to the history of exclusion and fear in the environment and the diverse lived experiences and perspectives of learners from all backgrounds, particularly of learners who have been marginalized and excluded in these spaces. A racially diverse workforce, at every level of an organization, is critical for interrupting a self-perpetuating system and for creating culturally relevant programming that reflects the needs, values, interests, and priorities of communities of color (Johnson, 2019).
Outdoor science education and a white-dominant narrative.
One explanation for the lack of focus on racial equity in the environmental education field is that it continues to emanate predominantly from and identify with the values of white, male, middle-class and upper-class culture (Lewis & James, 1995; Mclean, 2013; Stern et al., 2022). Homogenous cultural norms obscure the histories of communities of color, attempting to render their experiences and relationship with the outdoors invisible. This creates a barrier for organizations identifying as “environmental education” to building meaningful relationships with communities of color (Finney, 2014; Warren, 2016).
As an example, the highly influential notion of nature deficit disorder (Louv, 2005) advocates for children to have a relationship with nature that resembles the bygone days of previous generations, espousing a way of being in nature harkening back to a white, middle-class upbringing of a heterosexual boy in the 1940s (e.g., tree houses, forts, fishing, exploring). In doing so, Louv ignores a long history of communities of color being in connection with the outdoors as well as how, in the United States, communities of color have been denied physical and social access to such experiences (Dickinson, 2013). This single narrative of how people should feel, relate to, and be affected by nature limits the capacity of the outdoor science education field to consider more inclusive imaginings of diverse and culturally relevant learning experiences.
In 2018, a study of the outdoor science education field, led by the Research Group at the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley (Romero et al., 2019) underscored a clear disconnect in the way outdoor science education organization leaders and educators of color define, experience, and prioritize equity, inclusion, and diversity. The study found that while leaders generally want to prioritize equity, inclusion, and diversity, the strategies they use can unintentionally reinforce the status quo of the systemic racism and marginalization that staff of color experience. In fact, all People of Color in the study reported regularly experiencing instances of racism or prejudice through microaggressions or macroaggressions, a sense of being the “other” in their work environments, and/or of being excluded or tokenized by organizational practices.
Examining Equitable and Inclusive Work Environments in Environmental Education:
Perspectives from the Field and Implications for Organizations.
This study, led by The Research Group at The Lawrence Hall of Science, was commissioned as part of a planning grant, funded by the Pisces Foundation, to support the design of a professional learning workshop series for outdoor science education organizations. Through focus groups with educators of color and a survey of mostly White organization leaders, this study sought to better understand how environmental education organizations think about and operationalize equity and inclusion in the work environment. The findings resonate with much of the research and literature in the field (Roberts & Chitewere, 2011; Beasley, 2016; Taylor, 2018; Johnson, 2019) and continue to highlight how imperative it is that environmental education organizations examine their practices regarding equity and inclusion to ensure that they are being intentional and responsive to the experiences of their staff of color. (You can read the full study here.)
It is no accident that People of Color are marginalized in outdoor science education. The mainstream outdoor science field has consistently failed to recognize the historical and present-day contributions of People of Color, many of which pre-date the environmental movement. There is an inaccurate but persistent narrative in North American culture that suggests that People of Color are not connected to nature or the outdoors. The history of the environmental movement is steeped in racist history (Purdy, 2015; NoiseCat, 2015).
Learning about the racist history of environmental movements.
There is much literature documenting a history of racism and exclusion in environmentalism, from John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, to the formation of our National Parks, to the appropriation of Indigenous culture and simultaneous erasure of its current presence and contributions. Following are just a few resources we recommend as a starting place for learning more:
Brune, M. (2020). Pulling down our monuments. Sierra Club Website. Available here.
Cagle, S. (2019). Bees, not refugees: The environmentalist roots of anti-immigrant bigotry. The Guardian. Available here.
Finney, C. (2014). Black faces, white spaces: Reimagining the relationship of African Americans to the great outdoors. University of North Carolina Press. Available for purchase here.
Intersectional Environmentalist. (2021). The Intersectional History of Environmentalism. YouTube. Available here.
Mock, B. (2014). Are there two different versions of environmentalism, one “White,” one “Black”? Mother Jones. Available here.
NoiseCat, J. B. (2015). The forgotten history of ‘violent displacement’ that helped create the national parks. The Huffington Post. Available here.
Purdy, J. (2015). Environmentalism’s racist history. The New Yorker. Available here.
Taylor, D. E. (2016). The rise of the American conservation movement. Duke University Press. Available here.
The Avarna Group and Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST). (2020). Conservation for Whom. YouTube. Available here.
While many organizations say that equity, inclusion, and diversity are priorities, there has been limited change in recent years (Beasley, 2016; Johnson, 2019 ). For meaningful change, organizations need to dedicate focused attention and resources to this work. Leaders must be willing to critique, transform, and let go of “business-as-usual” practices to foster truly equitable and just working and learning environments. In the next section, there are eight suggestions that support outdoor science organizations to work toward equity and justice.
Justice Outside, our co-author for these suggestions.
The first seven suggestions were originally co-written by Jedda Foreman and Craig Strang (both from BEETLES) and Laura Rodriguez and Rena Payan (both from Justice Outside) for the article Racial Equity in Outdoor Science and Environmental Education: Re-Establishing the Field with Intention and have been adapted for use here. (Note: When we use the term we in these suggestions, it is a collective we. We, the field of outdoor science and environmental education, all of us.)
Eight Recommendations for Equity and Inclusion
Eight Recommendations for Equity and Inclusion
1. Make it okay to talk about racism in our organizations. Racism is at the heart of inequity in the United States and many other countries. As The BridgeSpan Group wrote in a 2020 report, “A race-neutral approach would fail to account for the ways that existing disparities and structural racism affect outcomes” (Patel, Smith, & Martin, 2020). People working in the field of outdoor science need to notice and talk directly about anti-Blackness, White supremacy culture, police brutality, and how racism is built into our country’s and our own organizations’ policies and systems in ways that are so common and embedded that we hardly notice them. When organizations create space for conversations about racism, it helps prevent People of Color from bearing the burden alone of bringing these issues to light. White folks in this field, in particular, have a responsibility to read, discuss, and educate themselves and each other about the harm embedded in our history, our “monuments,” and which ones need to be pulled down (Brune, 2020).
Learning more about anti-Blackness.
This article, “Historical Foundations of Race,” from the Talking about Race website of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, offers additional insight and information on race, White privilege, and anti-Blackness.
2. Rethink goals, priorities, and measures of “success.” There is a damaging, harmful paradigm in the field that tells organization leaders that the value of our work is defined by “numbers served.” This paradigm privileges quantity over quality and outputs over outcomes. When organization funders, boards, and internal metrics tell us that more is better, we have observed that equity is often the casualty. Prioritizing numbers served leads to two racist outcomes—first, we design programs for majority audiences first and wait until “later” to adapt them for marginalized communities with “unique needs”; and second, we offer programs first to customers who can pay retail program fees because more revenue allows us to hire more staff and run more programs, saving a few spaces for scholarships. A new paradigm would have organization leaders put less emphasis on head counting and instead prioritize addressing the needs of the most vulnerable communities first. Communities that have been traumatized by racist violence are currently also bearing the brunt of climate change impacts and environmental injustice and, historically, have been denied the physical and emotional benefits of access to safe outdoor spaces. What if we designed our programs to serve these communities first? We can make the case to our philanthropy and government agency partners that they should also adjust their measures of success to address relevant societal challenges rather than numeric targets.
Including funders in change.
Of course, some of the focus on numbers served is driven by funder expectations or what organization leaders think funders might want. Systematic change to the environmental education field must also include changes to funder expectations that prioritize organizational sustainability, racial equity and justice, professional learning, and mental health. Fortunately, some funders are already thinking about these elements, including the Blue Sky Funders Forum, a national collaborative of environmental education funders, and Justice Outside, which has created a Liberated Paths grant program.
3. Reimagine the workplace. There is a need to re-envision how work gets done within outdoor science education organizations: how decisions are made, who holds power in our organizations, what kinds of expertise and lived experiences are valued and promoted, whether we pay a living wage, what we expect from one another, and how transparent those expectations are. Tema Okun and Keneth Jones write that White supremacy culture is part of the fabric of all of our organizations, but the good news is, there are antidotes (Okun, 2021). We can all contribute to creating new practices and traditions, defining shared values, and creating new feedback systems that promote equity, inclusion, respect, and power-sharing.
Working Towards Equitable Organizations Brief:
Building Towards an Inclusive Organizational Culture:
Insights and Lessons Learned from YES Nature to Neighborhoods.
Check out this case study that highlights YES Nature to Neighborhood’s reflective journey in transforming their workplace to intentionally tend to the ways their systems and practices can foster the promotion and retention of People of Color in their organization.
This process of re-imagining and shifting how we work together is challenging and critically important—it is the foundational piece to sustaining a focus and prioritization on moving toward equity and justice. Many organizations begin equity and justice initiatives with a focus on hiring efforts or on revising instructional materials. While both of these efforts are important and meaningful ways of working toward equity, many organizations find that they can’t retain a diverse staff or adequately revise instructional materials without having examined workplace practices first.
Defining unconscious or implicit bias.
Adapted from the Racial Equity Tools Glossary: Known either as unconscious or implicit bias, these biases are negative associations that people unknowingly hold. They are expressed automatically, without conscious awareness. Many studies have indicated that implicit biases affect individuals’ attitudes and actions, thus creating real-world implications, even though individuals may not even be aware that those biases exist within themselves. Notably, implicit biases have been shown to override individuals’ stated commitments to equality and fairness, thereby producing behavior that diverges from the explicit attitudes that many people profess.
4. Reinvigorate professional learning. As a field, we need to recommit to professional learning and the reflection time it can offer for staff to rethink the quality, purpose, and priorities of our organizations’ work. In addition to safety protocols, program logistics, pedagogy, and inspiring new natural history content, employees need time to get to know one another, build rapport and a common vision, define values, and create a brave space for challenging conversations together (Arao & Clemens, 2013). Professional learning time should increase understanding of the history of racism in environmental education (and, more broadly, in the United States); reflect on unconscious bias; build awareness of and strategies for addressing microaggressions; and focus teaching and learning on cultural relevance, multiple ways of knowing, and, as Paulo Friere says, “using education as a practice for freedom” (Friere, 2018). In addition, organization and staffing structures can promote regular learning directly from communities you will be engaging in your programs—including community strengths, history, and environmental concerns—and using that information to shape and facilitate programming.
Potential for harm: including unconscious bias in professional learning.
Teaching about unconscious bias and other foundational issues related to equity and justice can bring up a lot of feelings, including ones of guilt, shame, vulnerability, or anger, which can be challenging to facilitate. Your organization might choose to hire outside consultants who specialize in this work to help facilitate these discussions or offer support on how to do it well, or you might have people in your organization interested in learning how to facilitate these kinds of discussions. Organizations such as Justice Outside, National Equity Project, Equity Meets Design, and many more can support organization leaders to facilitate these kinds of topics.
While all staff should have opportunities to attend conferences and workshops, it is important to prioritize the participation of staff of color. For many professionals of color in this field, professional learning experiences outside of their organization can be valuable opportunities to find affinity spaces, empathy, mentors of color, and respite from their white-dominant workplaces. Professional learning and networking that includes opportunities to engage in affinity spaces can offer those with marginalized identities an antidote and healing space to counteract the effects of isolation and oppression. For those with dominant identities, affinity spaces offer opportunities to learn that do not create an additional burden of emotional labor for those with marginalized identities.
Affinity spaces.
Affinity group/space: a designated “safe space” where everyone in that group shares a particular identity. This identity can be based on race, gender, sexual orientation, language, nationality, physical/mental ability, socioeconomic class, family structure, religion, etc. Affinity groups can be a place for people who hold marginalized identities to come together to feel less isolated and more connected. To learn more about the role of affinity spaces, check out the work of Racial Equity Tools. In addition, organizations such as the National Equity Project and PGM ONE (People of the Global Majority in the Outdoors, Nature, and Environment) offer racial affinity-based professional learning opportunities.
While all staff should have opportunities to attend conferences and workshops, it is important to prioritize the participation of staff of color. For many professionals of color in this field, professional learning experiences outside of their organization can be valuable opportunities to find affinity spaces, empathy, mentors of color, and respite from their white-dominant workplaces. Professional learning and networking that includes opportunities to engage in affinity spaces can offer those with marginalized identities an antidote and healing space to counteract the effects of isolation and oppression. For those with dominant identities, affinity spaces offer opportunities to learn that do not create an additional burden of emotional labor for those with marginalized identities.
Working Towards Equitable Organizations Brief:
Centering Equity and Inclusion in Cultivating Community.
We recommend reading this brief, which was co-authored by Jasmin Gonzalez and Martha Arciniega, with support from Valeria Romero and Aparajita Pande of The Lawrence Hall of Science’s Research Group. Gonzalez and Arciniega were participants in The Lawrence Hall of Science and Justice Outside Working Toward Equitable Organizations Professionals of Color Institute, which was a professional learning affinity space for educators of color in California. From the authors: “We represent staff of color working in the environmental education field. The perspectives of this brief and the values outlined for creating a community that centers equity and inclusion are shaped by the Working Towards Equitable Organizations (WTEO) project. Drawing on our firsthand experiences, the goal of this brief is to bring awareness to the ways that White supremacy culture has shown up in the field of environmental education. We also share ways in which we believe organizations can counteract those experiences as a means toward cultivating more equitable, inclusive, and racially just organizations. However, this is not a comprehensive manual on how to center equity and inclusion, rather a call for environmental organizations to carefully consider how they are centering BIPOC staff in goals/priorities, decision-making, and providing a space of healing.” Read the full brief here.
5. Redesign hiring practices. Current hiring practices are not working to diversify staff in outdoor science education. Instead, they are upholding the status quo of a majority-white outdoor science education workforce. In our 2018 study, leaders of outdoor science education organizations reported that they have a goal to hire more Black and Brown educators, and they cited three primary barriers to achieving this goal: (1) not enough People of Color apply; (2) applicants of color that do apply rarely meet the hiring criteria; and (3) the nature of the job does not meet the needs of People of Color (Romero et al., 2019). However, the same study made clear that these perceived challenges fail to acknowledge how the current hiring practices of outdoor science education organizations are reinforcing systemic barriers to entry.
"...the community working for the community."
“I was born and raised in my neighborhood; 100% of my staff live within five miles from the center. They eat, play, sleep, work in the neighborhood. So, it’s the community working for the community, and I’ve been able to hire what we call social justice warriors and teach them conservation issues. I can teach someone to bird in six months. For me to teach social justice, I would need a lifetime, 20 years at least. So, there’s a balance of us being able to place value on different things.”
Note: This quote is from a participant in a focus group conducted in 2021 for a study by Informing Change in partnership with The Lawrence Hall of Science and Justice Outside. Informing Change is an organization in Berkeley, California, that helps changemakers learn from the work they do and share the power of their learning with the communities they serve.
Organization leaders need to reflect on several factors that can have serious implications for how effective an organization may be in recruiting, hiring, and retaining staff from historically excluded communities. These factors include who composes hiring committees, what professional or lived experiences are identified and valued as qualifications, and how the job description is framed. They also include how an organization’s website might connect to equity and justice and how it describes the audience and communities that the organization engages.
Intentional Hiring and Recruitment through the Lens of Equity and Inclusion:
Insights and Lessons Learned from Crissy Field Center, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
This is a case study of how Crissy Field Center worked to reduce unconscious bias in their hiring practices over the course of several years. This brief provides an example of the introspection, intention, and attention to detail behind one organization’s journey toward a workforce that reflects the youth they serve and their organization-wide core values of equity and inclusion. Read the entire brief here.
Organizations need to reconsider what expertise is needed at every level of leadership. We must prioritize experience and expertise in advocating for and communicating about equity, lived experience in and with the communities we’re striving to reach, and models of leadership beyond those rooted in White supremacy culture and characteristics. Redesigning hiring practices includes redesigning job announcements and job descriptions, qualifications, hiring criteria, interview questions, hiring committees, performance evaluations, and where we recruit. These reimagined components will ring true if they mirror comparable revisions to organizational mission, vision, values, goals, and priorities as well as liveable wages for full-time jobs. More racially diverse teams will be uniquely suited to establish partnerships and design authentic culturally relevant programming with and for marginalized communities that we aim to prioritize.
Misconception: People of Color are not interested in environmental education.
Dorceta Taylor’s 2018 article, Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Students’ Readiness, Identity, Perceptions of Institutional Diversity, and Desire to Join the Environmental Workforce, featured in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Science, provides evidence that directly contradicts the common misconception that People of Color are not interested in environment-focused careers. Taylor also found that there were no significant differences in salary expectations between college students of color and White students interested in environmental careers, contradicting another common misconception that environmental education pays too little for “qualified” People of Color. Taylor’s findings offer more reasons for why organizations need to critically examine their own assumptions, hiring processes, guiding documents, workplace environments, and the role these factors might play in perpetuating a lack of diversity across the field of outdoor science education. Read the full article.
6. Rebuild and create partnerships. As a field, we need to build authentic and mutually beneficial relationships with a broad range of environment-related organizations including environmental justice, youth development, health and wellness, food justice, nutrition, transportation, clean water, clean air, and more. Because these organizations may not self-identify as part of environmental education or outdoor science, we will need new ways to describe each organization’s priorities in ways that highlight common ground. It is also critical that outdoor science education organizations form partnerships with school districts, county offices of education, and other mainstream K–12 education systems that can offer access to environmental and outdoor science learning experiences for a broader range of learners.
However, efforts by mostly White-led organizations and staff to partner with marginalized communities can be perceived as “White saviorism” when an organization doesn’t take time to authentically get to know a community, the resources it has, and its priorities. When we use mutually beneficial relationships as our starting point, rather than audiences or customers we can serve, we center partnership and trust and disrupt harmful attitudes of saviorism. Partnerships with community-based organizations and school systems can help us better understand the societal conditions that have led to marginalization. If these genuine partnerships are formed at the same time that we have redesigned hiring practices and reimagined our workplaces, we can have the resources, expertise, and lived experiences within our organizations to build trust and increase the quality and impacts of our work together.
History of White saviorism.
This article, A Savior No One Needs: Unpacking and Overcoming the White Savior Complex, offers some useful history and context for “White saviorism,” including examples in history, pop culture, and everyday life.
7. Redefine the field. Organizations across the field of outdoor science education are doing work to make our workplaces more just and equitable; together, the sum of our work, along with the work of funders and additional field advocates, can transform our field. Outdoor science education can become a field that recognizes and honors “environmental literacy” as consisting of knowledge, skills, know-how, attitudes, values, and beliefs that are held within communities in unique and powerful ways. With broader partnerships, inclusive workplace cultures, more equitable hiring practices, and a clear focus on equity at all levels of our work, we can redefine the field of environmental education—from one that began with roots in the oppression and marginalization of People of Color—into one that welcomes everyone to spend time learning outdoors and connecting to nature.
8. Contribute to equity in science and science education. Outdoor science education organizations can play a key role in contributing to equity in the broader field of science education. By leveraging the outdoors as a place for learning, outdoor science organizations can improve science literacy and assist in the widespread implementation of Next Generation Science Standards. Outdoor science education organizations can function as a bridge between informal and formal science instruction by addressing formal learning goals without being constrained by some common obstacles in formal learning environments, such as short and disconnected time periods and lack of direct access to the natural world. Outdoor science education can offer learners opportunities to engage in real-world science practices, beyond what is possible in a classroom, potentially increasing learners’ identification with science as a field and interest in pursuing science as an academic interest or profession. These connections can help make academic language and scientific habits of mind more accessible and relevant, particularly for students of color and others who are frequently marginalized in mainstream formal science classrooms. Over time, outdoor science education can contribute to changing demographics of who participates in, leads, and shapes the field of science overall.
Equity and outdoor science education.
Recommendations 7 and 8 on this list are based on Thomas Philip and Flavio Azevedo’s concise and stimulating article Everyday Science Learning and Equity: Mapping the Contested Terrain, which untangles how equity is talked about in out-of-school settings (Phillip & Azevedo, 2017). The article is available here.
We can go even further by challenging and reframing science at large. Outdoor science education organizations have an opportunity to offer access to the field of science as it currently exists and to influence what gets valued as science and who gets valued as scientists in the future. Outdoor science education organizations can contribute to changing the perception that science is something that mostly happens in a lab and is done by people wearing white coats. Outdoor science education programs can support systemic changes in the field of science, such as acknowledging Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and other scientific contributions from Indigenous cultures. Outdoor science education programs can also frame science not as just a means to knowledge-building but as a tool for community building, organizing, and achieving justice.
Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK).
Traditional Ecological Knowledge is a body of knowledge based on hundreds or thousands of years of close observations of ecosystems by Indigenous peoples. TEK includes Indigenous views on ecology, spirituality, and human and animal relationships. TEK overlaps with traditional western science in some ways and is unique in many others (Barnhardt & Kawagley, 2005; Kimmerer, 2015; Margolin, 2021). TEK and other Indigenous approaches can enrich science discussions.
Effecting Change for Equity, Inclusion, and Cultural Relevance
Effecting Change for Equity, Inclusion, and Cultural Relevance
Prioritizing racial equity will enhance the outdoor science education field for us all. A BridgeSpan article states, “deliberately prioritizing racial equity will further benefit the rest of society through the ‘curb-cut effect,’ which has shown that laws and programs designed for vulnerable groups have positive impacts on others (Cardichon, 2020).” The curb-cut effect is the phenomenon of disability-friendly features being used and appreciated by a larger group than the original group of people they were designed for. The name comes from curb cuts, which are the miniature ramps from the street up to the sidewalk, often at intersections. These were first made for wheelchair access but are now universal and no longer widely recognized as a disability-accessibility feature, since they benefit those pushing strollers, carts, roller bags, those unloading merchandise from trucks into stores, bicyclists, and many others. Working toward racial equity will similarly benefit more than just those who are currently marginalized within our field.
Naming racism, creating antidotes to White supremacy culture, valuing many kinds of experience and expertise, and building strong partnerships will improve our relationships with one another and with nature and make the outdoor science education field stronger, more resilient, and vastly more relevant. BEETLES didn’t come up with these ideas, and none of these actions are new. Many of these ideas have been described in depth and called for by social justice and environmental justice leaders of color for decades. These contributions have often been underrecognized, undersupported, and largely ignored or unseen by White-led and predominantly White organizations.
Centering equity cannot be the work of one person or even one organization, but it can be achieved through individuals and organizations working together to change policies, pedagogy, curricula, culture, systems, and ultimately the field—and fields collaborating to broaden ideas of what science is and who participates in and benefits from it. All these facets are part of a systemic approach to centering equity and, in particular, racial equity. In the pages and chapters that follow, we offer suggestions on how to implement some of these recommendations to improve all aspects of outdoor science education throughout an organization. Working toward equity and justice is addressed specifically and woven throughout each chapter of this Guide. While not a one-stop shop for all of an organization’s needs related to equity and justice, BEETLES resources can support more equitable, inclusive, and culturally relevant working and learning environments. Where appropriate, we also recommend additional organizations that can support specific needs related to equity and justice. Individual organizations will, of course, have unique challenges, and external consultants can offer critical expertise and support. BEETLES Design Principles for all materials—related to professional learning and instruction—include creating an environment where all individuals can participate in inclusive, equitable, and culturally relevant spaces. Naming this focus on equity and justice specifically means that high-quality always includes equity and justice as a priority. For us, there are no materials that are high-quality unless they support equity and justice.
Working Toward Racial Equity: A Vignette
Working Toward Racial Equity: A Vignette
This aspirational vignette illustrates many of the important elements of building toward an equitable and just organization that have been mentioned in this chapter. The fictional organization depicted in this vignette is in the middle of this process and has already laid a strong foundation for the work. It may be intimidating or overwhelming to read if your organization feels far from the reality presented here, but know that this vignette is based on real-world examples of outdoor science education organizations working toward equity and justice. This vignette is long and thorough to illustrate the kinds of details that contribute to an organization’s progress toward equity and justice. Some elements of this vignette are costly and might take years to work up to (e.g., a person in the position to direct equity and justice work at the organization level), and some of the elements of this vignette simply take a staff meeting and a willingness to begin (e.g., developing shared community agreements for discussions). Reader, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, the important thing is to not just click out of this chapter but pick out one thing you can do better and commit to it.
[cue scene]
As staff arrive in the meeting room, they glance up at the slide projected on the wall to see their pre-meeting prompt for the day. As expected, it is a description of one element of White supremacy culture (perfectionism) that they had read an article about a few months ago. Staff quickly pair off, finding someone they haven’t connected with recently, and begin discussing how perfectionism shows up in their workplace culture, how it impacts the organization, and what kinds of behaviors can replace it. Pairs add their ideas to sheets of chart paper around the room.
Brave space for discussion.
This fictional workplace has community agreements for meetings and discussions and has worked to create a “brave-space” work environment. The term brave space encourages participants to take risks and be vulnerable while emphasizing courage instead of safety or comfort. While safe space is often used to describe an atmosphere in which participants feel comfortable sharing, Arao and Clemens (2013), in their article From Safe Spaces to Brave Spaces, question if any space can be truly safe for all participants and also note that participants sometimes use the “excuse” of not feeling “safe” to avoid entering into uncomfortable conversations. The brave space created in this vignette allows staff to discuss challenging and often uncomfortable concepts such as White supremacy culture while minimizing the potential for harm.
After 10 minutes, today’s meeting facilitator (the role rotates), a person who works in the kitchen, calls for everyone’s attention, “Hello everyone. Thank you all for engaging in that last prompt. First, does anyone have a suggestion or request for getting ourselves ready for today’s meeting?” A program coordinator volunteers to guide the group through a few stretches and breathing exercises. The facilitator then shares a few appreciations for things they saw colleagues do or say during the week, invites the group to make brief announcements, and then passes it off to the Director of Culture to give the second annual update on equity and inclusion.
Director of Culture: “Hi, all. Thank you so much for being here. Last year, we gave our first annual update on the state of equity and inclusion in our organization, with the intention to improve transparency. Our Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team will be sharing today what we’ve accomplished this last year and our priorities for next year. Before we begin, I want to share two thank-yous. One to the board, which has engaged in a series of difficult conversations over the last year about our strategic priorities. One result of their frank and important conversations is that my position, Director of Culture, is now a 25% position, up from 10% last year. Our intention is that this position will be 100% within 5 years. Also new this year, each member of the Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team now has 10% of their time dedicated to this work. This was not an easy decision for the board to come to and there have been some transitions on the board as a result of these conversations, but we’ve landed collectively at a place where equity and justice are clear priorities. Second, a huge thank-you to this Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team, a distributed leadership team made up of 7 folks from all different parts of our organization, that has been tirelessly advocating for equity and inclusion this year. Each of them will be providing part of our update today.”
Distributed leadership.
Distributed leadership can be complex, time-consuming, and challenging to implement—after all, it goes against many commonly shared ideas of what “strong leadership” looks like. Open Mind Consulting and Informing Change developed a series of case studies on distributed leadership that illustrate the benefits as well as common challenges. While not rooted in outdoor science or environmental organizations, these case studies are insightful and useful. Read the case studies here.
Director of Education: “We have formalized two partnerships with community-based organizations this year. They will each be part of a community advisory board that will offer input on our organization's vision and strategic plan, programming, grant writing, and other key priorities. Someone in our organization will join each of their advisory boards as well. We are also collaboratively writing a proposal with one of these partner organizations to further support the relationship between our organizations. We’re still recruiting for more members of our community advisory board, and our goal is to have a board of 5–7 individuals by next year.”
Director of Human Resources: “We have a new onboarding process for incoming staff! This has been a major effort to ensure that everyone we hire develops awareness and fluency around social justice topics, including power, privilege, and unconscious bias, to name a few. This professional learning is now a standard part of our onboarding, and new staff will be expected to learn about these topics just as they learn about our other systems and processes. The onboarding includes a combination of readings and peer–mentor discussions. Thanks to those of you who helped design the mentor process and who have already committed to being peer-mentors next year.
Our new hiring practices, designed last year and implemented this year, seem to be an improvement. Since we didn’t collect data on the racial diversity of candidates previously, we don’t have any official comparisons to share, but so far, it seems like we had more racial diversity among finalist candidates and new hires than at any time since I’ve worked here. We started data collection this year and will be including year-to-year comparisons in future updates. Although this has been a goal of ours for several years, we intentionally didn’t start implementing these hiring processes until we had made some commitments to support and retain staff of color.”
Facilities staff-person: “We’ve reviewed results from the annual culture survey that we all took at our staff meeting two months ago and are proud to say that people are feeling more socially connected to peers and more trusting with colleagues. Many people said they are feeling more able to bring their authentic selves to work. But, perceptions of leadership pathways in the organization and how people perceive their personal values in alignment with our organization values haven’t changed much and are still lower than what we’d like. In particular, pathways for advancement are not apparent to many instructors and mid-level managers, particularly for women and people who identify as non-binary or genderqueer. Some People of Color continue to experience unconscious bias and microaggressions. This feedback is going to be a focus of this committee in the next year.”
Executive Director: “Our organization’s Executive Team tried out a 360-feedback process. Each member of the Executive Team chose 4–6 people they work with in various capacities to get feedback from. Each member of the Management Team will be presenting what they learned and what they are committing to continuing or doing differently in an open session that all staff are invited to attend. I’ll be getting us started with a presentation in two weeks—look for your calendar invite later this week. After that, we’ll ask for all-staff feedback on the process and decide together if we want to stick with this 360 process or try a different one.”
360-feedback process.
There are many ways to set up systems for feedback. A 360-feedback process is one way to get feedback not just from a supervisor, but from a wide range of colleagues and collaborators. If you’re curious to learn more, here’s one article to get you started.
Director of Culture: “We’re going to pause now to reflect, ask questions, and discuss with one another. In groups of 3, please discuss (1) questions you have, and (2) how you have experienced our organization's progress toward equity and inclusion this year. Have the changes we’ve talked about today impacted your day-to-day life? If so, how? Please share on the chart paper at each table. We invite folks to create identity affinity groups for this discussion if that would support candid reflections.”
Staff are familiar with this routine and quickly break into small groups. Cards on tables denoting specific identities (created at a previous meeting) allow folks to easily create affinity spaces, if they want. Staff start talking about the presentation, sharing their experiences of the last year, asking one another questions, and writing comments on posters around the room. Staff can be heard sharing personal anecdotes about experiencing a microaggression and watching a colleague stop the meeting to address the potential impact, how vulnerable it felt to offer someone on the management team feedback on their performance in the new 360 process, feelings of tokenization in being asked to reach out to a specific community partner, the experience of talking about White supremacy culture at work and with family, and more. After about 15 minutes, the Director of Culture asks for folks’ attention and invites additional comments and whole-group sharing. Several people ask questions that are answered by members of the Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team. Others share personal experiences of the last year, revealing both the organization’s progress as well as the work it still needs to do. When comments have slowed, the Director of Culture restarts the presentation.
Director of Culture: “Thank you all for the rich discussion and sharing. This group reflection time is critical for our continued growth. Our Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team, along with the Executive Team, just completed our annual capacity reflection and wanted to share our suggestions for next year’s priorities. After you hear these ideas, we’ll open it up again for discussion and comments.”
Chapter 4: Building Capacity for Organizational Improvement.
Chapter 4 of this Guide dives into what we mean by building capacity and how to use the reflection tool mentioned in this vignette for your own reflections and discussions.
Instructor: “Our discussion after completing the capacity reflection revealed several ideas to focus on next year. We want to review and revise our organization values. We want to add a value of self-care and create a section of our staff handbook describing the role of individual self-care in organizational success. We also want to take our discussions and reflections on how White supremacy cultural values show up in our organization and make changes in some of our norms and structures and processes.”
Chief Financial Officer: “We also want to create more opportunities for professional learning and leadership development, especially for staff of color. We started offering affinity spaces last year, but we want to support that in a more systematic way through partnerships with other organizations near us. And we want to identify more people for our community advisory board and add more structure to how the community advisory board operates, including identifying a specific program for the board to provide input about.”
Instructor: “We want to hear how these priorities land for you. If we make progress on these priorities this year, would your experience as an employee of this organization be improved? What’s missing from this list?”
Chief Financial Officer: “We also want to hear your reflections on who should be part of the Equity and Inclusion Leadership Team to advise our Director of Culture and move these priorities forward. We decided the makeup of this team should be reviewed each year and include opportunities for new perspectives. There is a tray with nomination forms where you can nominate specific people, including yourselves, or roles whose perspectives you think should be included.”
Staff separate into small groups and begin rotating through stations with chart paper that have specific prompts, adding sticky notes with their own ideas or annotating others. After 15 minutes, the Director of Culture once again focuses the group’s attention on whole-group sharing and reflection. Several people note patterns they saw on the posters about priorities and the people whose voices should be involved next year. At the end of the meeting, the facilitator thanks everyone for participating and hands out pieces of paper for everyone to share something they “got” from the meeting today and something they still “need” to help the presenters understand how the meeting was received. The Education Director shares that the next staff meeting will be a Lesson Reflection process to discuss improving teaching practices and the organization's vision. The meeting officially closes with another invitation for someone to share closing thoughts or a breathing exercise.
Gots & Needs.
Gots & Needs is an informal survey process commonly used at The Lawrence Hall of Science. It offers a quick reflection for participants and incredibly valuable insights for facilitators on how participants are feeling and reacting and how to improve professional learning experiences. “Gots” can include anything participants got out of the workshop, including what they learned, feelings from being a participant, new ideas, etc. “Needs” is similarly broad and can include lingering questions, physical needs (e.g., bio breaks or intermittent stretching), etc.
Debriefing the Vignette
Debriefing the Vignette
Here are some critical elements to notice in this vignette:
Point person for equity and justice, with a high level of authority. There is one person, the Director of Culture, whose job is to advance organizational priorities related to equity and justice. This person creates systems for feedback, input, and distributed leadership and has significant, dedicated, paid time (25%) for the work.
Input from various parts of the organization and the community, with expertise and time compensated. Everyone who is asked to participate in this work, including community partners and internal staff, are compensated for their time so the work is prioritized.
Systems for continual improvement. The organization holds itself accountable for continuous learning and creates systems, such as annual reports, surveys, and feedback requirements, that document and measure the current reality in relation to the organization’s vision.
Systems for transparency and accountability. The organization is intentional about increasing transparency to build trust and hold the organization accountable for its decisions and actions.
Distributed leadership. The organization creates opportunities for distributed leadership, including an official team that offers input on equity and justice, a structure to rotate meeting facilitation, and invitations at the beginning and end of each meeting for anyone on staff to lead a short activity.
Focus on individuals. While change is driven at an organizational level, leaders listen to and value individuals and engage in their own individual work to deepen their understanding of equity. The organization’s systems promote a sense of belonging for staff and value staff as people, not just employees.
Challenges exist. While not belabored in this fictional staff meeting, the vignette alludes to several challenges: the transitions of some board members and subsequent buy-in of the board; staff of color experiencing microagressions; and a lack of visible advancement pathways, particularly for education staff and staff who identify as women or non-binary/genderqueer. These challenges are acknowledged, and the actions taken to address them are transparent. Because there is visible overall progress, the staff generally still trusts that things will continue to improve and that they can talk openly about harm or challenges they have experienced without concern of retaliation.
What’s missing:
An explanation for why racial justice. Organizations that successfully center racial justice can explain why—and every employee can explain why—it is mission critical: How is centering racial justice essential to your organization’s mission, or how will not centering racial justice prevent your organization from achieving its mission? Without having an answer for this question, many organizations will face resistance and confusion. In this vignette, this organization has already made the case for racial equity being mission critical.
Any mention of student activities. Organizations can’t focus on everything at once. This vignette illustrates an organization that has decided to focus its efforts on the work environment and connections to the community (actions that set up a future focus on student-facing programming).
The Demos Racial Equity Transformation case study.
For a real-life and thorough description of how an organization began its “racial equity transformation,” see this case study from Demos. This case study illustrates a “mission critical” rationale very strongly.
Key Resources and References
Key Resources and References
The writing in this chapter builds on the work of many brilliant minds. See below for a sample of key resources and references to learn more about concepts mentioned in this chapter.
Organizations
PGM ONE (People of the Global Majority in the Outdoors, Nature, and the Environment)
National Museum of African American History and Culture (specifically, its resources on Talking about Race)
Books
DiAngelo, R. (2018). White fragility: Why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism. Beacon Press.
Freire, P. (1996). Pedagogy of the oppressed (revised). New York: Continuum.
Hammond, Z. (2014). Culturally responsive teaching & the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Corwin.
Hernandez, J. (2022). Fresh banana leaves: Healing Indigenous landscapes through Indigenous science. North Atlantic Books.
Hooks, B. (2014). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. Routledge.
Kimmerer, R. W. (2015). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed Editions.
Kendi, I. X. (2019). How to be an antiracist. One World.
Kendi, I. X. (2017) Stamped from the beginning: The definitive history of racist Ideas in America. PublicAffairs.
Taylor, D. E. (2016). The rise of the American conservation movement. Duke University Press
Articles
Arao, B., & Clemens, K. (2013). From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice. In L. M. Landreman (Ed.), The art of effective facilitation: Reflections from social justice educators (pp. 135–150). Stylus Publishing, LLC. https://www.gvsu.edu/cms4/asset/843249C9-B1E5-BD47-A25EDBC68363B726/from-safe-spaces-to-brave-spaces.pdf
Brown, E. (2005). Decentering dominant discourses in education: The emancipatory possibilities of our work. Counterpoints, 275, 59–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42978777
Ladson‐Billings, G. (1995). But that's just good teaching! The case for culturally relevant pedagogy. Theory into practice, 34(3), 159–165.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2014). Culturally relevant pedagogy 2.0: aka the remix. Harvard Educational Review, 84(1), 74–84.
McGhee, H., Mayo, L., & Park, A. (2021, April 14). Demos’ racial equity transformation: Key components, process & lessons. Demos. https://www.demos.org/research/demos-racial-equity-transformation-key-components-process-lessons
Okun, T. (2021). (Divorcing) White supremacy culture. http://www.dismantlingracism.org/white-supremacy-culture.html
Philip, T. M., & Azevedo, F. S. (2017). Everyday science learning and equity: Mapping the contested terrain. Science Education, 101(4), 526–532.
Romero, V., Foreman, J., Strang, C., Rodriguez, L., Payan, R., & Bailey, K. (2019). Examining equitable and inclusive work environments: Perspectives from the field and implications for organizations. Berkeley, CA
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