Would a community engagement campaign project benefit your community?

Students plan and implement a community engagement campaign to raise awareness about a local environmental issue and to work towards positively impacting the community with their efforts. Students could:

• Give presentations to local organizations
• Organize community events
• Record or broadcast public service announcements
• Share information on social media
• Post flyers in the community
• Share posters at community events/fairs/festivals

An example of this process could include:

1. Educate: Students share their research findings with their school or community using methods such as posters, flyers, door hangers, and media.
2. Advocate: Students present their findings to their local school boards and/or government officials.
3. Monitor: Students can keep track of how their education and advocacy efforts are making an impact. For example, in a recycling engagement project, students could collect data on how many items are successfully recycled at their school, or for an air pollution engagement project, students could count how many people rode their bikes to school or the amount of time cars spend idling at the school pick up line.
4. Share/Celebrate: Students can share the success of their efforts with the broader community, further encouraging environmental action.

There are many types of community engagement campaigns that your students can plan and implement. Students can address any environmental issue in their watershed with a campaign.

Examples include campaigns to:

• reduce air pollution by reducing vehicle idling time and increasing green transportation methods
• stop the spread of invasive species and to increase native plantings
• stop storm drain dumping
• increase the proper disposal of pet waste
• increase recycling at school or in the community

Depending on the types of education and advocacy methods, the cost of this type of project will vary. For example, expenses could include door hangers, flyers, posters, and supplies to create these items. Additionally, if a community engagement event is planned, costs would include the items needed to host the event.

Repeat engagement or wider reaching efforts could be a part of a long-term maintenance plan for your community engagement project. 

• Local government agencies
• Community venues to host events
• Media stations

There are many ways to determine if a community engagement campaign is successful. For example, students could calculate how often the actions they provided education and advocacy about are implemented.