The Northwest Earth Institute helps create change by helping you share sustainability learning, stories, and challenges with your community.
I attended a webinar this morning for this local PDX nonprofit with several ties to my own work. It appears as though their model is creating discussion group curricula and guiding people through the process of facilitating the group. People come from a variety of environments and host the program in churches, on college campuses, at their place of employment and more.
The themes that resonate more with me include:
-The subject matter of the discussion group curricula: one is called Seeing Systems: Peace, Justice, and Sustainability--but there is also climate change, and reconnecting to the earth. I haven’t thoroughly read any of these, but I am intrigued to.
-The process model that they follow include: transformative learning, collaborative discovery, personal reflection and opportunity for action. Each of these are relevant to my own educational lens.
-The collaborative learning model: their groups have a focus on non-heirarchaI learning in a seminar style format. think it is interesting that they concentrate on what they call “crossing the say-do gap” in light of being based in such a progressive city. Portland is sometimes accused of not walking the talk. Community visioning seems to be an important part of what they do, too. I am curious if they ever address systems change vs. personal actions.
-Popular Education: to participate, one only needs someone that is willing to be a facilitator and then enough financial resources to buy the books to follow along. I am curious if there are versions that are accessible to less literate populations.
I look forward to learning more about the great work that they do.