This blog post was written by Bethany Kogut, moderator of the K–12 EE eePRO Group.

As an environmental educator, do you do outreach or education? It’s hard to pick, right? It has been a pleasure to hold various roles throughout my career focused on engaging with schools and communities to develop a sense of care and responsibility for our environment. In each role, I have had the responsibility to educate and to do outreach, but haven’t spent much time digging into the differences of how that might show up in schools, community spaces, or even in passing. As an educator, exploring these differences ensures that the programs I am developing and delivering reach the correct audience and utilize the most impactful methods. By investigating this distinction, we can be more intentional in our work, making sure that both outreach and education effectively support learning and action.  

When the public thinks about education, their first thoughts would probably go directly to schools. You may have caught yourself, and said, “But wait, education happens in other spaces too, like museums, gardens, zoos, and parks.” As an environmental educator, I agree. Education can happen in formal, non-formal, and informal spaces to name a few. Regardless of the location, the purpose of education is to impart knowledge. Depending on your field or area, this may range from conservation, to ecosystems, to science practices. In most scenarios this knowledge is also deep and comprehensive in a way that people develop an understanding of a given topic. This, to me, serves as the main difference between education and outreach.

Now, this doesn’t mean that outreach doesn’t help people gain knowledge. Outreach can surely help people gain understanding, but that understanding may remain at more of a surface level. I may even go so far as to say that the main purpose of outreach is to cause behavior change or to inspire action. Outreach helps the general public gain enough knowledge to make a change in their everyday lives. Outreach takes place beyond the four walls of a classroom, and in many cases, utilizes methods such as tabling or public events, social media campaigns and marketing, or workshops. In some cases, you may even use outreach to promote an educational program which would mean the action you are hoping people take is to learn more!

When we look at education and outreach on a continuum of breadth versus depth, we can better understand where each fits within the environmental field. Educational programs may support a more holistic and deeper understanding of a given, complex topic. These programs may support the individual in developing their own solutions or action, and equip individuals with the know-how to weigh the options for taking action. These programs may be time-intensive and require repetitive engagement. Therefore, the programs may not be able to support larger numbers of people. Some examples of this could include a series of seminars, a unit used in a classroom, or a mentoring program. 

Programs that focus on breadth, on the other hand, may be more shallow in understanding, but support folks with enough knowledge to make a choice, even though those choices may be explicitly stated instead of self-created. Wide-scope outreach may allow you to reach many people, be a one-time engagement, or even a passive engagement, and therefore have a greater reach. These experiences allow for people to get introduced to topics, connect with others, or potentially engage with information they wouldn’t have otherwise come across. 

Depending on the goals of the program and how it is designed, both outreach and education experiences can be measured on these scales. 

Comparing outreach and education certainly isn’t an either-or situation; it is more so a both-and. These approaches work together in a cooperative way, and even integrate well with each other to ensure that the program you run supports understanding of content and meaningful action-taking. It is vital to understand and identify the engagement goal before determining if the approach may look more like outreach or education. 

I want to hear from you! What do you think identifies outreach and education? How do they support each other?