Best Practice: 3.5 Community Projects: Students conduct environmental community engagement projects. 

About

Developing community engagement projects that involve family and members of the community can help improve community engaged learning and improve overall sustainability throughout the school. By identifying sustainability issues and programs within your community where more help is needed, school Green Teams can establish activities and projects that help the members and environment of their community to move towards a more sustainable community overall. The Best Practice Actions within the Best Practice 3.5 can help identify what issues need to be addressed within your community and how to move forward with projects by recording what areas you are working within and documenting your project.  

Vision and Benefits

After developing a Green Team (Best Practice 0.1) and completing projects within your school, a next step is identifying issues within your community and creating actions to address them. Addressing these issues can improve community engaged learning practices within your school while also helping members of the community by creating a more sustainable system and green environment. 

Many benefits come from implementing sustainable practices that involve your community. Community and family involvement in projects and education in sustainability can increase achievement of students in schools, help strengthen the curriculum to increase sustainable literacy, and promote student participation throughout the school. These benefits overall aid in the education of sustainable practices and prepare students for solving environmental issues outside of a school environment and in their future careers.

Who's Doing It?

Examples from Green Ribbon Schools Data: 

• Forest Lake Area High School, 2019- 8 professionals in environmental careers spoke to 395 students and shared information on the importance of these careers in developing sustainable communities.  

• River’s Edge Academy School, 2018- Each year, homerooms select a service project site to work on once a month throughout the school year. This includes working with Youth Farms, Conservation Corps of Minnesota and Iowa, and their local farmer’s market. 

• Moreland Arts and Health Science Magnet, 2018- With help from the University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardeners, the school created a pollinator friendly environment outside of school and implemented practices that aid in reducing exposure to toxic chemicals and land restoration. 

• Henry Sibley High School, 2016- Students sell compost to the community from a local compost facility. This also integrates organics education by bringing the composting process full circle. 

• Glendale Elementary School, 2016- This elementary school works with the Mdewakanton Organic Recycling facility to help waste reduction and student learning about recycling at school. 

The Datasheet (future) for each Best Practice is a resource you can use to plan actions you want to take, implement those actions in a project, and submit documentation for the project along with a project story form.  

Implement Best Practice Actions in a Project

Select Best Practice Actions (BPAs) to work on and complete

A. Inventory and Management of Community Engagement BPAs

A1. Identify Past Community Projects and Engaged Learning  

• A highly effective method to analyze what action can be done in the community is gathering an inventory of past projects done by the school and their effectiveness within the community.

• This may help organize what actions have been done and where more work may need to be completed. 

• A supervisor may create a spreadsheet or have students write a diagram of projects on a board and draw connections between the projects and its effect on the community. 

A2. Inventory of Resources from the Community

• Researching what shelters, assisted living facilities, sustainability programs, and other school groups exist in your community will benefit resources, projects and volunteer opportunities within your community.

• Many resources from the community have opportunities for students to learn through service work and environmental education. Discover how you and resources in your community could partner together to create events that promote sustainability and education for students.

• Create a list of these resources and contact information for present and future use in a document. 

*For more information on making connections with community organizations, visit Best Practice 3.6 Community Partnerships to help build connections. 

B. Project Identification BPAs 

B1. Upcycling and Donation Based Projects

• Initiating recycling within your school, running a clothing drive for your local community, and running projects to raise money at local shelters are just a few examples of the BPA of Upcycling and Donating. 

• This BPA helps repurpose previously used items which decreases waste and helps others in the community who can benefit from the donations of these items. 

• In order for an event of donations of money to fall under this category, it must go towards an organization that is promoting a more sustainable system and benefit members of the community or other communities. 

B2. Civic Engagement Projects

• School Green Teams may participate in town meetings, have guest speakers from the local government, and run protests for sustainable actions within the community to help demonstrate civic action within your community.

• The main idea of this type of project is to learn about the community’s role in legislation that promotes and protects sustainable and green acts. 

B3. Environmental Restoration Projects

• Some Green Team projects completed may involve helping the environment, which would include activities like growing a community garden, planting trees, planning a day for road clean-up, or touring a near-by nature center to learn about land restoration.

• This BPA focuses on the benefit of learning about how our positive actions can benefit the natural environment and leave a better footprint on the planet. 

B4. Career Based Projects

• Having scholars and employees talk to students about green careers to consider after primary school and touring facilities that function in a sustainable way are a few ways that students can engage in Educational and Career Based Projects.

• This exposes students to sustainability options outside of what they have already learned in their curriculum and through other service learning.

B5. Art and Creation Projects 

• This BPA can be completed by participating in artistic expressions of the environment and sustainability. 

• Groups have created music presentations, skits with students participating, and handmade goods sold at local farmers markets. The importance in this project is understanding the significance of our environment through art creation and expression. 

C. Vision Backcasting and Reflection

• Vision Backcasting is the process of brainstorming what the school and community would look and function like if all sustainability and environmental projects were completed and your green school worked perfectly. 

• By starting with your ideal future, you can work backwards and identify the steps needed to get there. 

• This is a good exercise to complete within your student group and will help identify where areas need more attention, the positive effect of community engaged projects, and improve brainstorming skills.

Related Best Practices

The Community Projects Best Practice may intertwine with more specific Best Practices that describe the roles to take on as you are addressing an issue. For example, if you are preparing a project that involves recycling by creating an educational curriculum with speakers from the community, you may look at the Best Practice 1.3 about waste management and reduction within a school. A community garden for outdoor and service learning may also be related to Best Practice 2.7 about Nutrition. For curriculum-centered activities, looking at Best Practice 3.1 about Integrated Environmental Education may help teachers identify what they can modify about their curriculum in order to provide more education on sustainability and the environment. By looking at the different Best Practices within Minnesota Green Step Schools, you may find helpful connections across categories. 

Submit Annual Review

The annual review for this best practice includes

• Confirming that Best Practice Actions are still active. (Eg. are programs still in operation and working? Are event or time based actions repeated each year?)

• Amending the documentation with any changes

• Adding any lessons learned from the prior year to share with others.

To submit the annual review, send in the datasheet (future) for this best practice with updated calendar year in the update column to reflect which BPAs are still active.

GreenStep Advisor

• Contact Jonee Kulman Brigham for assistance

GreenStep Resource Organizations

Explore GreenStep Resource Organizations for this best practice based on types of assistance they offer. As more resource organizations join, there will be more offerings and an ability to sort by type and topic of support. In particular:

• For a comprehensive resource, see the Minnesota Association for Environmental Education, which hosts a searchable database of resources called the EE Portal to support environmental education, including outdoor learning.

Also see:

• Yes! (Youth Eco Solutions) - many YES! projects involve community engaged work

• MN GIS Education Hub (GIS tools and apps free to K-12 schools can be used effectively in community projects)

• U.S. Green Building Council - Minnesota Center for Green Schools has a library of resources

Online Resources:

Other online resources include:

• Department of Natural Resources (DNR) web page on Funding for No Child Left Inside to see updates on dates and application processes

• National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF)

• North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE), including EE program evaluation guidance