Participation in volunteer monitoring and other types of citizen, community, and participatory science initiatives is often dominated by older, well-educated, mid-upper class, white participants. Yet, broadening participation in these programs to reach a more diverse audience is critically important. More inclusive participation in volunteer water monitoring programs has the potential to enable a wider breadth of environmental concerns to be identified and addressed, improving conditions for those who face disparate environmental impacts. Broader participation also affords the opportunity to augment watershed knowledge learning among a wider spectrum of the public and for individuals to build relationships with places, leading to enhanced environmental stewardship over time. This interactive workshop will begin with sharing best practices and lessons learned from a recent survey of water resources-focused volunteer monitoring programs to identify challenges faced in broadening diversity of participation as well as successes in doing so and a literature review about diversity of participation across the field of public engagement in scientific research. Participants will share challenges they have faced and successes they have achieved to diversify participation through interactive tools and conversation, allowing for problem sharing and solution identification among participants. A case study will highlight challenges and successes of diversifying participation. In the second half of the 90-minute workshop, facilitators will guide participants to work on their own and in small groups to follow a framework defined by the planning team based on research results. This framework will incorporate best practices for diversifying participation. Using a “think, pair, share” model, participants will collaborate on ideas and potential challenges they foresee in attempts to expand diversity of participation in their programs. Each participant will leave the workshop with a plan and timeline to increase diversity of participation in their volunteer monitoring program.
Participants should make a list, prior to attendance, of challenges they are facing and/or questions they have regarding DEIJA efforts in their programs. This will prep them for the discussion and allow for more time spent on the solution/action brainstorming rather than thinking of their challenges.
Presenters
Lori Sprague, U. S. Geological Survey Bryan Rabon, S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control
Jane Caffrey, University of West Florida, Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation
Roger Stewart