Why should natural resource professionals incorporate best education practices into water management programs? How will the BEP Project make the case that incorporating best education practices in water outreach programming is worth the effort and resources? We’ve taken a four-part approach toward answering these questions.

1. Best Education Practices: Study of Provider Needs
2. Model Education Techniques
3. Synthesis of Significant Research: The BEP Decision Tree
4. Literature Search for Audience-Specific BEPs

 

Rationale:

Many environmental education research papers recommend education practices. Few papers focus on adult audiences, and few identify education practices that are best for specific audience groups. Resource management papers affirm that good resource management includes outreach to the public or to a target audience but offer few education practice recommendations.

To call an education technique a best practice, requires that its outcomes be compared through empirical research to the outcomes of a range of educative practices that have been used in multiple cases to educate like audiences. Observers, participants, or both can identify good education practices based on their observations and experiences of a particular practice in a single educational situation. When comparing two practices, they might observe that one is better than the other for educating a specified audience.

The Project reviewed thousands of papers, identified through searches in multiple education, environmental, resource, and resource management journals and journal databases. Findings are available in a report and related factsheet. Outreach That Makes a Difference. Target Audiences for Water Education – A Research Meta-Analysis , and Study Specific Research Findings for 15 Target Audiences [summary tables for each audience].

A June 2004 Symposium: Best Education Practices for Water Outreach Professionals, national water outreach and education professionals helped build this repository of audience-specific best education practices and topic-specific water outreach resources. Participants assisted in the identification of relevant research, discovery of links to published information about water management topics, and access to case studies that demonstrate best education practices. Refer to the 2004 BEP Symposium Proceedings 

 

Best Education Practices: Study of Provider Needs

The first step was to go to water-management professionals for insight and advice. In 2002 the project conducted a Study of Provider Needs to identify what resources these professionals currently use, how the resources might better meet user needs, how the project can make them more accessible, and how it can promote the use of best practices in water outreach education. Informants included Extension Water Quality Coordinators as well as other U.S. water outreach and education professionals. Major categories of survey inquiry included:

• Use of the Internet (as of 2002).
• Preferred sources of materials and advice.
• Targeted audiences.
• Instructional strategies used.
• Methods of assessing the quality of resources.

The study revealed that educators want help assessing the needs of their audiences, help assessing and selecting the highest quality resources, and help finding and accessing water education materials. Respondents also suggested services that would enhance outreach and educational efforts by water quality educators.

Results of the survey:

• Best Education Practices: Study of Provider Needs – An Overview
• Best Education Practices: Study of Provider Needs – Full Report
• Appendix A: Project Advisory Team and Staff Members
• Appendix B: Informant Selection Procedures
• Appendix C: Telephone Survey Instrument 
• Appendix D: Description of Informant Groups 
• Appendix E: Instructional Strategies and Preferences 
• Appendix F: Information Needs 
• Appendix G: Favored Internet Sites 

 

Model Education Techniques

Study respondents outlined instructional strategies they value for their outreach and education efforts. Examples of BEPs incorporated in successful water programs include assessing audience needs; judging the quality of water education materials; choosing appropriate instructional strategies; developing instructional skills; and evaluating Web site resources. Products offering model techniques and resources include Essential Best Education Practices [factsheet] and the Best Education Practices Decision Tree [flowchart].

 

Synthesis of Significant Research: The BEP Decision Tree

The BEP Web project offered a shortcut, in the form of a decision tree, for quickly exploring the components of learning, theoretical foundations of education, and components of practice (planning, implementation and evaluation), which provide the basis for understanding the importance of BEPs.

Using the Decision Tree familiarizes natural resource professionals with outreach strategies and helps professionals select one or more options most likely to lead to desired outreach impacts.

 

Literature Search for Audience-Specific BEPs

A literature search described in Outreach That Makes a Difference. Target Audiences for Water Education – A Research Meta-Analysis [report] identified research findings that apply to education of specific audiences. The project looked for unique tips or strategies that have been tested and shown to be effective with the following target audiences:

• Agency Partners
• Agricultural Commodity Groups
• Environmental/Conservation Nongovernment Organizations
• Farmers
• Homeowners
• Households
• Industrial Water Users
• Landowners
• Local Decision and Policy Makers
• Neighborhood Organizations
• Recreational Businesses (water-related)
• Recreational Water Users
• Retailers of Water Recreation Equipment
• Service Clubs
• Soil and Water Conservation Districts
• Specific Ethnic Groups