Resources

White 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.

Stereotyping 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.

Tips for having difficult conversations

We have compiled some tips and helpful phrases that can help you have that difficult conversation with someone, regardless of your relationship to them.

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.

This Land is Our Land?

Emily Root writes about how non-Native environmental educators have much to learn from indigenous communities; however, she notes that there is a marked anxiety and confusion about how to learn and apply those lessons appropriately in a non-Native context. In this ethnographic piece, Root interviews several white environmental educators who have different perspectives on their decolonization process.
Read here.