Seeking & sharing insights on networks for collective action.
Alex Chan, University of Maryland 4-H Youth Development Educator for Prince George's county, is teaching high school students about healthy romantic relationships. He's a great example of bringing one's whole self to Extension work, bringing his experience as a marriage and family therapist to his current work.
I found out about Alex's workshops through this NPR Education article. Here's our conversation.
An important article came out in the June 2017 edition of the Journal of Extension.
"Redefining the Concept of Learning in Cooperative Extension" is a thoughtful, challenging conversation starter. I recently discussed it with the NDSU Extension Innovation team, and it sparked several questions from the practical to the existential.
After that conversation, I could hardly wait to talk with the authors, and they were kind enough to oblige. Here's my conversation with Steven Worker, 4-H Youth Development Advisor, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources; Kristy Ouellette, Associate Extension Professor, 4-H Youth Development, University of Maine, Cooperative Extension; and Alexa Maille, 4-H STEM Specialist, Cornell University, Cornell Cooperative Extension. I hope it gets you thinking.
The latest Working Differently in Extension podcast features a conversation with Dave Campbell, Community Studies Specialist in Cooperative Extension and associate dean for social/human sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California-Davis.
Dave says the goal of his work is "to deepen the practice of democratic citizenship in California communities." That goal speaks directly to my interests in equity, engagement and collective action. It also speaks to Extension's legacy of empowering citizens. We talked about whether that legacy still plays a central role in Extension.
We also talked about what Dave means by forming a "community of the problem." It's really about turning a private problem into a public problem. Can people faced with the same problem come together to define the problem and work on it together? Dave is looking at that possibilities around the issue of food waste.
Here's our conversation:
