A “teach-in” can be defined by its key characteristics: “practical, participatory, oriented toward action,” to quote Wikipedia. The following is an outline for a method for making our discussions fit these criteria.  You are, of course, free to modify these Guidelines according to the appropriateness to the moment, or the community, or the number of attendees.

Materials:  Sign-in Sheets and a clip board and pen to circulate; Information handouts/porfoliios. If no blackboard/whiteboard available, big tear-off paper pad and  tape for taping up the big sheets of paper;  markers and post-it notes; coffee and cookies and trimmings; notepads and pens for recorders.

Before the meeting starts, if at all possible, write each of the topics highlighted in 2) below on the blackboard/whiteboard or at the top of a large page of paper, and tape the sheets around the room.

Meeting (approximately 2 hours total):

1) Sign-In.  Make sure everyone signs the Sign-up Sheet (attached), for follow-ups. Depending on the size of the audience and the community, and how well people know one another, this might also be a good time to have each participant briefly introduce himself/herself, mentioning roles or activities or interests relevant to environmental discussion.

2) Introduction. Distribute the information sheets/portfolios  on  Gaylord Nelson, Earth Day, the Wild Rivers Act and the St. Croix and its tributaries, the play “Happy and the River”, sources for reading and researching and acting.  

Topics:  
    a) What do rivers, and other natural landscapes, offer us as individuals and as communities, psychologically and/or spiritually/mystically?
    b) What are the connections between Gaylord Nelson’s time and place of upbringing (Clear Lake, Polk County) and his beliefs and actions and time of living?
    c) What is the history of preservation of natural landscapes in your area?
    d) What makes change good or bad? Is it always a trade-off between benefits and detriments from change? What is the value of learning of history?
Natural  history?
    e) Who has a right to use rivers or other natural resources for profit, as in the logging companies and the St. Croix? How is this use to be controlled or regulated, or should it be a free-for-all?
    f)  In our communities, how do we resolve the question of private vs. public “rights,” as in property rights?  What are some of the organizations you are aware of that have preservation of natural landscapes or resources as their mission or as one of their activities? How have they experienced or resolved the private vs public issue?
    g) How do things get done legislatively, or as a movement? Can one individual have the power to begin a movement?
    h) What are the most important preservations yet to take place in your community? 

3) Distribute post-it notes and ask participants to write thoughts/ideas/information about each of the topics, and ask them to stick their post-its under the appropriate topic. 

4) When everyone has done this, read the post-its and combine similar ones. Briefly discuss each list.

5)  Assuming about an hour has passed, Break for coffee, cookies, bathrooms.  Circulate during break and ask questions, or get people together, or include those who are too quiet, and so on.

6) Following the break, divide the large group into small groups based on some kind of community, or common characteristic. Start with those from the same village or township.

7) Ask the groups to do the following: select a leader/spokesperson for the group; select a recorder, to take notes from the group.  Each group should then discuss and record some possible applications of the larger ideas and connect those ideas to practical actions that could be taken in their community, thinking of both environmental needs and goals.  Divide the actions by long term, a year or more, and short term, three weeks or three months. 

8) Defining our Assets: ask each person to consider his or her talents, contacts, resources, and to “take possession” of one of the goals, i.e. to serve as a leader in working toward that goal according to the time-line. 

9) Ask each group to set up a meeting in three weeks  to assess progress and problems and additions to the goals. Make sure each group leader has the sign-up sheet information for the people in his or her group.  

10) Rejoin the full group together and ask each reporter to give a brief summary of the ideas and actions and time-lines  coming out of his or her small group.  

11) Set up a meeting time and place for the full group to get together again in three months.

12) Distribute Evaluation forms and collect

Teach-In Comments

The following comments were shared following teach-ins held the St. Croix River Valley communities:

The value of learning history helps us to place ourselves in a continuum. Our place in time is among infinite others.

A history of a place is crucial to understanding how to avoid problems in the future.

We learn how small, seemingly inconsequential actions–good or bad—can have profound results.

History helps identify sacred places and provides context for the future.

Societal change is good if it empowers people. History teaches us that every generation has faced its own set of problems—many of which appeared insurmountable.

Change is good that respects the past and present and preserves the character that has come to define the place.

People don't like change because of its unpredictability. Making the “unknown” safe is helpful.

The human endeavor can be repeated or re-made, but a species, once lost, will never appear again. Why lose the pieces before we understand their place and role in an ecosystem?

The welfare of native species should be of utmost importance, and we should work toward “minimal” to “no” impact on our natural resources.

I have been thinking about what an urban planner said recently— that once you scour off topsoil and lay concrete—it's so hard to ever to go back and recover the soil and vegetation.

Land use (unwise sprawl development) is a creeping disease that exploits communities after it is often too late for us to stop.

Funding provided in part by
the Wisconsin Humanities Council.

For more information about Gaylord Nelson’s environmental legacy and Earth Day see St. Croix Conservation Study Center-CONSERVATION.