subject

Inclusion Tips for Outdoor Program and Field Staff

This document is for outdoor, environmental, or experiential educators and conservation program staff. This every-evolving tips sheet provides strategies for fostering a more inclusive environment for any program participant.

Toolkit to Mitigate Bias in Recruitment & Hiring (Updated 11/2021))

We have compiled a list of some of the most current and salient ideas for ensuring your hiring practices are as equitable and inclusive as possible. This toolkit takes you through the entire hiring process, giving suggestions for each step. (Updated November 2021)

Identity signs

This activity is designed to get participants thinking about their own identities in relation to systems of power and privilege, as well as understand how others’ identities are influenced by power and privilege.

In/Out of the Box

This is an activity that allows students to discuss how society assumes different qualities regarding different identities and then how they or other people they know transcend those imposed qualities.

Tierra y Vida: Chicanos and the Environmental Justice Movement

José Gonzalez outlines important concepts and histories regarding Chicanos’ involvement in the environmental justice movement. He discusses environmental issues that have disproportionately impacted the Latino community and how the Chicano community has responded. Read here.

Pedagogy of Place

Authors Brian Wattchow and Mike Brown provide an alternative vision for outdoor education by first calling into question the assumptions that are made in outdoor education and then calling for practices that highlight the intersection of place and culture. They have provided the entire book for free!

Read here.

White privilege and experiential education: A critical reflection

Jeff Rose and Karen Paisley outline how white privilege is embedded in experiential education (and specifically outdoor education) through assumptions about how students should experience experiential education and the environment. In academic terms, Rose and Paisely argue that experiential education is a privileged pedagogy.

Read here.

The Freeland Project

Fair warning: this is actually not free, but a great resource if you have the capacity to buy it. Ariel Luckey, a performance artist, puts on a one person show that describes his very personal journey to understanding how colonialism shaped the West and impacted his life as a white man. He investigates both historical land politics and current land politics in his home, the Bay Area. You can purchase the DVD of the performance and the curriculum guide.
Access here.

In Light of Reverence

This film tells three stories about land disputes between indigenous communities and outdoor reactionists and/or mining companies. It highlights how different groups and cultures understand and experience land. The film is available for purchase or available to rent on Netflix. The film also comes with a lesson plan, available here.
Read the summary here.

Colors of Nature: Teaching Guide

Colors of Nature is an anthology of writing that links place and culture together, from a diverse group of writers and thinkers. The book is accompanied by a robust teaching guide. Access here.

Review: Dispossessing the Wilderness

A review of Mark David Spence’s, “Dispossessing the Wilderness,” which provides a history of how Yosemite, Glacier, and Yellowstone National Parks were predicated upon the forcible removal of indigenous people from their land through physical violence, broken treaties, and unequal partnerships. Spence’s work is recommended reading for anyone who wants to understand the American wilderness through an important lens.
Read here.

How to tell someone they sound racist

Jay Smooth instructs on how to have a productive conversation with someone who just may have said something racist. While he focuses on race here, his tactics apply to addressing any difficult or sticky conversation, especially around identity, power, and oppression.
Watch here.