Building broad awareness about a MWEE may strengthen community support and, ultimately, the long-term success of a MWEE. This can be beneficial at the school, district, and broader community levels. Actively engaging students in this process can be an interesting extension to the synthesis and conclusions element of a MWEE, and depending on the nature of the outreach may even be appropriate as an action project.
At the individual school level, it is important to celebrate success to garner additional resources and excitement for the project, and to build toward or reinforce a school culture that embraces outdoor education. Principals, other teachers, Parent Teacher Associations (PTA), building services staff, parents, and other students are all important partners. Getting them involved in and excited about the project can go a long way toward ensuring that a MWEE has the support to continue into the future. It is also important to recognize partners who lend their support. Schools often have a variety of built-in mechanisms for helping with this—from the school or PTA newsletter, website, or social media accounts to the morning announcements, bulletin boards, or events.
It is also useful to build support at the school district level. There is a great opportunity for teachers and their principals to share information and accolades about their MWEE with curriculum coordinators and content supervisors to identify ways to scale classroom-based MWEEs to more classrooms and schools, ideally becoming embedded systemically into the curriculum. This can create the space, permission, and sometimes even funding for schools and teachers to implement MWEEs. Partners at this level include superintendents, boards of education, and central office staff, such as curriculum and facilities managers. Invitations from schools to attend press events, community outreach events, or other celebrations are often met favorably by these partners. Students can deliver powerful testimonies at these events or at school board meetings.
Image: Students present on behavior changes community members can make to improve local water quality at a public event.
The community surrounding a school is generally extremely interested in learning more about school initiatives, especially because many of the community members have children who are attending, will attend, or have attended the school. Reaching out to the community through the media, public service announcements, meetings of local government officials, and/or community outreach events can increase awareness of and support for a MWEE. Presenting to local government officials about the findings of their MWEE is sometimes a logical and powerful culmination of the student action project of the MWEE if there is a persuasive element. Teachers, school administrators, or partners may also want to reach out to local television stations, newspapers, and online media services to invite them to witness a MWEE in action.
These are just some ideas for how to build awareness for a MWEE. There may be additional opportunities within your own community to consider.
Image: Students communicate information about their investigations to a local TV station.