“Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a passion for something, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.“ -Etienne Wenger
Communities of Practice (CoPs) for environmental educators in Alberta, will help members of the environmental education community deliver on their mission,and collaborate to advance environmental education in Alberta. Thanks to the Suncor Energy Foundation and the Calgary Foundation for helping us launch this!
Join a Community of Practice
Currently, there are 15 groups, five were launched at events in the fall of 2012 and winter of 2013 and more formed at the Earth Matters Conference in April 2013.
If you are interested in joining one of these groups, visit http://secure.abcee.org/ to see the full list and fill out the free membership form. Do you have a group not listed? Interested in starting one? Contact Christina for more information.
Once you fill out the Membership form and indicate the CoPs (you can join more than one) you would like to be apart of, you will:
- Be listed in the CoP ‘business card’ directories
- Have an account on secure.abcee.org (login anytime to update your CoP profile)
- Be kept in the loop on events, collaborations and updates from the communities you have joined
- Be added to a Google Email group that will help you stay connected with the other members of the CoP
- Have access to a shared Google Doc folder for your CoP to share documents and resources
The five CoPs launched before the 2013 Earth Matters Conference have started working together. To see what they have done together visit the following pages:
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Water Education – includes education about wetlands, oceans, water conservation, etc.
- Energy and Climate Change Education – includes education and citizen engagement on energy efficiency and conservation, alternative energy, air quality, transportation, climate change etc.
- Land Use and Conservation Education – includes education about parks, biodiversity, wildlife, agriculture, forestry, etc.
- Outdoor Education – includes education about outdoor skills, healthy outdoor lifestyles, sensory activities, camp experiences, nature centres, etc.
- Waste Education – includes education about recycling and the 3Rs, composting, consumerism etc.
Why are we doing this?
We believe that these Communities of Practice will help you and your organization in a number of ways:
- Meet your ‘human needs’ for community and networking
- Learn more about other organizations and programs in your Community of Practice
- Work together to identify common barriers to your work – and build bridges over these barriers
- Identify your professional learning needs, and meet those needs
- See where programs are complementary to – or in competition to – one another, and identify education ‘gaps’
- Provide better support to teachers and other audiences
- Create efficiencies and synergies in your work. This might include working with other groups to coordinate activities and programs, forming partnerships, etc.
- Develop coordinated approaches to the funding community
Survey and webinar – we asked environmental educators for their feedback on this initiative in April 2012. This page summarizes the survey results and provides links to the webinar about this initiative.
Funding for this initiative is provided by:
