Agencies, educators, communities and wildfire: partnerships to enhance environmental education for youth

Abstract

We studied seven programs that engage youth from 10 to 18 years old in wildfire risk reduction in their communities in the United States through in-depth interviews to examine the nature and role of community-school partnerships in resource-focused environmental education. While the programs use a variety of strategies, from Scout badge to summer school, they exhibit several common dimensions: they all engage youth in community projects; they all arise from partnerships between resource agencies, community organizations, and educators; they all began when people familiar with both wildfire and youth education saw an opportunity to improve the community and educate youth through action; and all partners are able to contribute to the common program yet retain their individual identity as they meet their own mission-based goals. We use themes and quotes to illustrate these common dimensions for establishing community-school partnerships that could build action competence through environment-based education projects.

Keywords:

• community
• agency
• wildfire
• educators
• partnership

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the willingness and dedication of the leaders of the seven youth wildfire programs who welcomed us as we conducted interviews and learned about their activities. The four anonymous reviewers of this draft manuscript offered extremely valuable comments and suggestions. We also thank the US Forest Service, Northern Research Station, for their financial support of this joint venture [10-JV-11,242,309-069].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Case study summaries for most programs can be downloaded from http://www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs.

2. FireSafe and Firewise Councils are community groups of forestry, emergency management, fire fighters, educators, elected officials, planners, builders, community organizations, and homeowners who work together to negotiate immediate and long-term strategies to reduce their risk of wildfire.