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Changing Public Behavior > BEPs > Individual

131 Total Findings

A participatory workshop using pollution modeling, satellite images, maps, and discussion, enables farmers to identify pollution prevention efforts that are considered to be within their own control.  Farmers may not be willing to adopt measures that lead to lost income, even when they consider the measure to be effective.

Acknowledge landowner interest and concern for the quality of their land.

Address economic benefits: Show that profits will increase as a result of adoption of the practice

Address farmers' perceptions of risk. Acknowledge the tendency for farmers to be "adverse to additional risk ". That is, a new practice or technology must not add to current risks, or it must reduce risks to productivity incurred through other practices in order to be viewed favorably

An effective stormwater public education program focuses on building an understanding of wet weather flow issues and garnering support for all facets of the implementation, particularly on-site source controls using targeted communication tactics that promote action and commitment to the implementation of various controls. On-site controls messages can address reduction of pesticide and fertilizer use, promoting source controls such as downspout disconnection, reducing impervious surfaces, importance of stoop and scoop of pet waste, vehicle maintenance, and the connection between roadside catch basins and lake water quality.

Assure that intervention programs are relevant to perceived needs of farmers, relevant to cultural milieu of subgroups, and relevant to specific environmental needs:

Base the outreach or education process on mutual understanding, trust, and respect that leads landowners to choose to comply because they see it in their best interest.

Before designing training, survey local officials to learn if they:

Carefully determine what is important for students to know and why before presenting classroom activities focusing on a specific water topic

Carefully tailor the water conservation message to address the specific circumstances of the target audience.

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Collect and assess data about the following, prior to developing the outreach program:

Conduct voluntary and confidential assessments on individual farms, in cooperation with groundwater technicians. Develop an “Improvement Action Plan” for individual farms.

Consider target audience issues such as time, skill, and direct experience with saving money over time

Convey water conservation techniques through hands-on training and talking through questions in a workshop style.

Create information, communication and education design to address research-based information about farmer characteristics, such as:

Design communication and professional development opportunities for outreach educators that will motivate them to implement a priority program because:

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style:

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style: Provide farmers with opportunities to solve a problem in addition to providing other standard hands-on outreach techniques such as opportunities for talking with specialists, field days, demonstrations, etc.

Design outreach to address farmer preferred learning style

Design programs to: Establish an explicit set of objectives

Design programs to: Provide an authentic experience, similar to what the participant will experience in their personal life.

Design programs to: Provide an opportunity to practice the target behavior

Design programs to: Provide direct experience relevant to the objective

Design programs to: Provide learning opportunities before and after the field activities to optimize knowledge gain

Design training to provide students with work in teams on a practical experience with interdisciplinary participants

Develop program design and content to adhere to guiding principles for boating, fishing, and aquatic stewardship education. The program:

Develop program design and content to adhere to guiding principles for boating, fishing, and aquatic stewardship education. The program:

Emphasize an "integrated" program that provides a continuum of information, communication, and education resources

Emphasize how easy it is to do the right thing and the impacts of not engaging in pollution prevention.

Emphasize one-on-one contact.

Emphasize one-on-one contact. This strategy correlates with farmer willingness to change practices, but adoption of a new technology requires more than a personal conversation and data about the specific situation

Enable students to personalize their education objectives (through pre-course interviews)

Facilitate farmer-led program design and implementation that leads to:

Facilitate farmers developing their own water quality management plans. Emphasize, peer information exchange in farm quality planning.

Feel confident about choosing to communicate through major public media and education campaigns because, if each goal is specifically addressed they can have a demonstratable effect on attitudes, knowledge, behavior intentions, and behavior change.

Focus outreach initiatives on a geographic area with a targeted audience

Focus outreach to farmers on farm efficiency and productivity, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group. But pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, as well.

Focus programs designed to facilitate adoption of precision farming techniques on farmers who:

Focus the content for outreach materials on cost savings, such as when and where pollution prevention is as cheap as or cheaper than traditional techniques. Include facts and figures.

For rangeland owners and managers, evaluation surveys of training outcomes are an alternative to formal reporting about implementation of nonpoint source water programs that protects confidentiality while documenting program success.

For sustainable agriculture education, target families with one or more of these characteristics:

Generate local information and use it as the basis for local public education programs.

Give the audience an opportunity to provide input into the process to better assure that they will allow local leaders to make decisions for them.

Identify specific education needs, for example the percent of households with drinking water that does not meet public health standards.

If providing explanatory materials by mail to residents from communities engaged in watershed planning, find ways to encourage individuals to engage. Keep in mind that only residents who take the time to review materials are likely to demonstrate knowledge mastery and an inclination to apply results.

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address:

In communication and outreach about groundwater, address:

In designing outreach programs that strive to link environmental concern with recreational behaviors

In designing outreach programs that strive to link environmental concern with recreational behaviors, attend to:

In designing outreach to encourage participation in outdoor recreation programs, attend to:

In designing outreach to encourage participation in outdoor recreation programs, attend to:

Include environmental stewardship information shown to be significant in predicting farmer adoption of new practices:

Include information that shows how the message affects landowners personally and what specific actions landowners can take to improve the situation.

Incorporate field-based experiences and service-learning as significant components of environmental stewardship programs that focus on building environmentally responsible behavior among students

Indicate personal risk when risks exist.

Industry initiated voluntary pollution control programs, supported by education, can result in implementation of BMPs when course work involves participants developing a water quality management plan for their ranch that includes
ranch description, ranch goals, ranch maps, basin water quality status, nonpoint source self-assessments, existing and planned BMPs, and monitoring procedures.

Keep the message simple.

Keep the purpose of an event or message similar to the local situation (e.g., documents and videotapes are most effective when clearly tailored to the local landscape).

Link education to production decisions to reflect the fact that operators prefer to make production decisions based on their own farm records and advice from on-farm employees.

Look to these conditions for opportunities to provide education that is more likely to be effective:

Make a recommendation for action and provide explicit instructions for how to take action without too much investment of time or money.

Make turf grass management courses readily accessible to golf course managers and provide instructor support for completing assignments and application to their own golf course

Pay attention to unique factors of cultural groups, but programs that focus on efficiency and productivity in decision-making are likely to succeed, whatever the social characteristics of the farm group

Phosphorus public information campaigns need:

Present nutrient application simulations to farmers in a group, to give farmers an opportunity to learn what practices others are using and how they weigh aspects when making decisions about nutrient management.

Promote resources through sources the audience considers credible.

Provide activities: That enable students to demonstrate mastery through a public presentation

Provide activities: That enable students to respond to a real-world or authentic challenge

Provide activities: With a real problem to solve

Provide agriculture landowners with written materials in addition to whatever other communication methods are selected.

Provide course activities with direct application to work responsibilities (appropriate to local context)

Provide face-to-face meeting opportunities: to allow for learning from others and to provide camaraderie (networking and moral support).

Provide information to farmers in three stages:

Provide information, encouragement and cash incentives to participate in or practice a new technology, but keep in mind that incentives have a weak influence on adoption.

Provide instructor feedback

Provide landowners with hands-on, practical training about individual property management choices. Describe choices in the context of information about broader ecosystem science and impacts.

Provide one-on-one communication with a person engaged in the targeted activity to enhance the knowledge they gain and their interest in acquiring more information.

Provide students with autonomy in determining content and timing of learning activities.

Provide teacher training that is hands-on, intense, comprehensive, and includes work in the field. A successful training could:

Provide teachers with substantial support to better enable them to build water supply and management topics into their curricula by:

Provide teachers with substantial support, to better enable them to build water supply and management topics into their curricula, by:

Provide the following when focusing on environmentally responsible behavior:

Provide the following when focusing on environmentally responsible behavior:

Provide the following when focusing on environmentally responsible behavior:

Provide training for real estate professionals in a supportive atmosphere accompanied by a field trip

Provide training with a clear goal, geared toward the needs of a target audience.

Recognize the limits of regulation in producing behavior change:

Recognize the role of economic factors in behavior change:

Rely on farmer personal experience as more influential than education or research reports

Rely on these outreach components for a conservation initiative (Dietz, 2004 Symposium):

Rely on these outreach components for a conservation initiative (Dietz, 2004, Env Mgmt):

Rely on these outreach components for a conservation initiative:

Require locally extensive training. In a study with a small sample group, this requirement was shown to increase peer group awareness and implementation of skills.

Segment information content, to address differences in target audience interests.

Social learning refers to the growing capacity of a social network to develop and perform collective actions. In promoting social learning in watershed management, use technical information in a way that supports local actors to explore and clarify their own understanding of the river basin. Beware of information or communication tools that are either poorly designed or used inadequately, for example with too much technical content. Those can act as a barrier by overwhelming actors with technical information which is not relevant or understandable for them.

Structure activities at a field site in order to increase knowledge gain, but apply structured activity with care in order to avoid reducing motivation

Tailor drinking water education materials to the learning style, educational level and potential vision problems of a relatively uneducated, elderly audience.

Tailor materials to details of the farm operation.

Tailor messages to provide the audience with information that affects them personally.

Teach water science and build environmentally responsible behavior among students through “service-learning” experiences that apply principles of interaction and continuity: both of which are significant features of education that lead to learning.

Teach water science and build environmentally responsible behavior among students through “service-learning” experiences that apply principles of interaction and continuity: both significant features of education that leads to learning.

Tell the audience what actions they can take to improve the situation.

Test effectiveness of education program delivery through comparison of changes in nitrate, nutrients and bacteria in runoff.

Test the audience at the beginning of the workshop to improve instructor ability to enhance subsequent learning

The choice of type of visual, spatial information to use in an education program depends on the audience. Some prefer pollution modeling, others prefer satellite images and maps or simply the discussion generated by showing models and maps.

To facilitate students' ability to conceptualize the groundwater environment, engage teachers in learning how to develop appropriate assessment materials. For example, model use of preassessment to assess students’ groundwater understandings using various types of multiplechoice items, open-ended questions, and drawing prompts. Ask teachers to analyze what types of information each item provides and construct an appropriate instructional plan based on the responses.

To facilitate students' ability to conceptualize the groundwater environment, measure understandings of the concepts using: drawings, concept maps, and open-ended questions.

To facilitate students' ability to conceptualize the groundwater environment, teach instructors the fundamentals of assessing for conceptual understanding of science concepts. For example, the teacher can identify what language the students are using to describe groundwater and consequently what possible alternative conceptions may need to be explicitly addressed.

To facilitate students' ability to conceptualize the groundwater environment, use the following instructional tools: rock specimens, three-dimensional physical models, and fieldwork.

To gauge landowner willingness to engage in riparian zone management, assess identified predictors of landowner intentions: willingness to consider the recommendations of groups such as governmental agencies and watershed associations, beliefs that riparian management would be beneficial, and past and current riparian management behavior.

To increase US public acceptance of water reuse, such as high awareness of treatment technology, trust in local government; and of the challenges and opportunities of water reuse in the US:

To increase ownership and empowerment, design programs to:

To increase ownership and empowerment, design programs with a strong emphasis on:

To increase understanding of complex concepts related to groundwater:

To produce long-term changes in behavior, provide comprehensive training in the set of variables correlated with measurable changes in environmentally-related behavior, including:

To promote riparian zone management: clearly and convincingly demonstrate the benefits of riparian zone management; promote a supportive normative climate by getting groups or important individuals within the community to strongly endorse the practice; solicit endorsements from other rural landholders; devise strategies for overcoming the barriers (real or perceived) associated with riparian zone management or provide alternatives; and engage landowners in riparian management behaviors to increase familiarity with options.

Trusted individuals can deliver messages effectively

Use a test or an advance activity to learn information about students, in order to enhance the likelihood of an increase in student knowledge about a specific water topic through presentation of the topic in a way which is interesting and relevant to students and builds motivation to learn

Use farm assessments to identify pollution risks when the use of an assessment tool is likely to lead to cost-effective, voluntary actions to reduce those risks.

Use farm assessments to increase the likelihood of management changes for topics addressed in the assessment

Use financial incentives, where possible, to facilitate behavior change:

Use multiple methods to introduce specific concepts. Repeat concepts throughout the education experience

Use simulation games to help increase participant flexibility in making choices

Use water education activities to provide “situated problem-solving” practice that can translate to workforce skills.

Visual, spatial information is effective in stimulating group discussion when presented as part of a participatory approach.

When deciding between a physical or a virtual field trip for undergraduate college students, if both situations take students through a series of interactive experiences designed and controlled to maximize learning, consider:

When involving the public in green space planning: use survey responses to group residents according to their interest in recreation, in planning participation, or no interest.

When persuading farmers to reduce chemical use:

When using predictive models to aid farmers in making a nutrient application decision:

With Latino youth programs, use place-based pedagogies so that the education of citizens might have direct bearing on the well-being of the social and ecological places people actually inhabit.


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