activities
The Fish Wars
This is a in-depth lesson plan put together about The Fish Wars of the 1960s and 70s between Indigenous nations and the states of Oregon and Washington, in which the state governments violated the treaty rights of native people and unconstitutionally barred their access to fishing. This is a great resources for educators and students to learn about The Fish Wars and the rights of Native American sovereign nations. For more read here.
Trapdoors Activity
In an activity offered by Training for Change, participants are guided through an activity that opens up a discussion about institutional barriers and how individual may interact with those barriers. Click here for facilitation notes.
Project Implicit: the Implicit Association Test
Test your own hidden bias with this free online test sponsored by Harvard University and taken by millions of people in the past 15 years. The Implicit Association Test is a time-tested method for testing hidden bias. Enter with an open mind. Access here.
Iceberg of Diversity Activity
This activity explores the meaning and implications of diversity, including visible and invisible facets of diversity and how we make assumptions about people based on what we see.
DownloadToss and Survive Activity
Through a simple game, you can introduce the concept of inclusion and how microaggressions manifest in groups.
DownloadOutsider Stories Activity
This activity is useful for building empathy within participants who do not often find themselves in situations where they are an outsider. By getting participants to reflect on situations in which they were an outsider, they can better relate to others who might feel this way because of exclusive cultures and behaviors within your organization.
DownloadThe Meaning of Wilderness Activity
This activity uses a reading to explore how dominant perceptions of wilderness can lead to exclusion. Though it is structured for facilitation during an outdoor experiential education trip, you can adapt it for use in any context in which your organization is grappling with wilderness and its various constructs.
DownloadAdapt versus Include Activity
This activity helps guide you in drawing the line between behavior and needs that your organization and its leaders should honor, and behavior and needs that participants will need to modify to adapt to your organizational culture. The take-home is that inclusion doesn’t mean welcoming everything. There will be pinch points when you will need to decide what to include and when to ask participants/staff to adapt.
DownloadThe Power House Activity
This is a relatively safe approach to exploring privilege and power structures in a way that minimizes feelings of resentment and empowering participants to be allies. Use this as an alternative to the Privilege Walk if you want to lower risk. But realize that this activity is too safe in that it doesn’t require that participants talk about their lived experiences of privilege.
DownloadTwo Circles Activity
Participants will recognize the beliefs and stereotypes they were taught about their own and other racial and ethnic groups. They will also recognize that stereotypes are learned behaviors, something we are socialized to believe, and can therefore be unlearned by openly discussing and purposefully combating them. This activity helps to move participants from feelings of denial, shame or blame, to taking responsibility for unconscious behaviors.
DownloadWhite Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
This seminal work by feminist Peggy McIntosh continues to be the source for the “go to” activity on privilege-the “Privilege Walk.” Social justice facilitators typically ask participants to line up, then ask each of the questions in the series posed by McIntosh, with participants stepping forward if their answer to the question is yes and backward if their answer to the question is no. The activity can be high-risk, so don’t facilitate it unless you are with a group that has established mutual trust and rapport, and unless you can frame it up in a way that inspires learning and behavior change, and not shame and resentment. For more information about the activity along with a customized list of questions geared toward participants in the outdoor and environmental space, please search our list of activities.
DownloadStereotyping Activity
This activity is an effective introduction to how hidden biases impact our perceptions of people who are different from us, how our knee-jerk reactions can lead us to making the wrong conclusions about people, and how often we stereotype people even when we don’t intend to.
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