Program Description:

This course provides environmental professionals with a practical introduction to the strategies, methods and tools of environmental communication that effectively lead to changes in behavior. The field-based skills gained through this course will benefit all practicing environmental professionals faced with the challenge of changing behaviors. The primary set of tools covered in this course will focus on environmental social marketing.

Most often environmental professionals face problems and apply well-developed planning, management, engineering and scientific principles to address their problems. The premise of this course is that most environmental problems are caused by human behavior and have long-term implications. To address and create long-term solutions to these problems, behavior needs to change. The newly emerging field of environmental communication brings together a set of social marketing and behavior change tools that can help with environmental enforcement, compliance with regulations and desired changes in behavior when no policy or law exists to force that behavior. Students will be exposed to the very fast growing set of resources – papers, publications, case studies, people and programs that offer assistance in addressing behavior change questions.

The course is six weeks in length and is taught in a distance learning format using online and teleconferencing technology. Content is broken out into different themes within the topic of environmental communication within the six week course:

Week 1: Introduction to the Course • This week provides the opportunity to become familiar with the course software and online format, meet fellow course participants and the instructor and begin reading assignments for the course.

Week 2: Introduction to Social Marketing • What is it? How can we use it? Can you really change behavior? How does social marketing work at the community level? Introduction of a simple model for application of social marketing.

Week 3: Behavior Change and Your Audience • The key to successful behavior change is understanding your audience in all new ways. We will examine the formative research that is critical to campaign success.

Week 4: Designing Your Campaign and Measuring its Success • How do you design a campaign that really reaches your audience? We will discuss the elements that make a campaign successful, as well as how and why to pre-test materials and slogans and the elements of a good evaluation.

Week 5: Policy Advocacy • Often as environmental professionals, we are trying to enact or implement new policy. We will examine how to effectively apply these behavior change ideas to policy, get our messages to the right audiences, get otherwise disinterested policy-makers to pay attention and create a sense of urgency.

Week 6: Culminating Assignment • Participants will submit final papers that apply the new knowledge and tools learned throughout the course.

Course Details:

Structure:

This course will require approximately 40 contact hours over the 6-week class period. Time will include:

• One week to commence course reading, get familiar with course format and participate in an introductory conference call.

• Reading of assigned materials.

• Discussion via online discussion boards. Participation will be encouraged through the posing of various questions based on readings, previous discussion and future directions of the class. In addition to exploring general course topics, web discussion tools will also allow students to work through issues related to their paper topic and explore opportunities and strategies with help from others in the class and instructor’s guidance.

• Participation in five synchronous sessions (conference calls) of one hour each (one per week for the first five weeks), during which students and the instructor will address the week’s theme and materials.

• Creation of and response to a final paper assignment that addresses a practical solution to an environmental communication issue. (There is a week at the end to finish this assignment.)

Requirements:

Class participation:
One of the most critical elements of this class will be your personal contribution to the course through consistent postings to discussion boards, as well as participation in weekly conference calls. You will receive specific instructions for this requirement before the course commences.

Paper: An Environmental Communication/Behavior Change Strategy Addressing a Real Issue
This paper is a practical application of lessons from this course, translating what you learn into a usable strategy for yourself and/or other professionals in the field. The paper must address a real problem and real barriers and be able to be implemented within the reasonable set of resources of the players for whom you propose the strategy. Assignment details will be given at the beginning of the class.

Instructor:

Brian Day is a well-recognized environmental educator and communicator with 30 years experience in more than 30 countries. Brian is Founder and President of the International Institute for Environmental Communication. Brian is Editor of Applied Environmental Education and Communication, a peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor and Francis. Brian has taught graduate and undergraduate courses for Duke University and University of Michigan and undergraduate courses for American University, Wayne State University and the Washington Center. Brian has created a diversity of programs, initiated and provided communications training to thousands, and has raised well over $60 million for environmental programs.

Tuition and Registration:

There are two registration options for this course, Workshop or Graduate Credit.

Workshop:
$595 on or before December 20, 2006 ($675 after December 20, 2006). At the successful completion of the course, workshop participants will be mailed a certificate.

Graduate Credit:
$1100 on or before December 20, 2006 ($1150 after December 20, 2006). Course tuition includes registration and transcript fees for one unit of pass/fail graduate credit through the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

Confirmation: Upon receipt of your registration fee, we will email you a registration confirmation. Please call our office if you do not receive a confirmation within 5 business days.

Cancellation & Refunds: Instructors have confirmed their participation. If for unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances instructors cannot participate, instructional time will be filled with comparable instructors. If a course is canceled due to insufficient registrations, tuition will be refunded.

Cancellation of registration requires 14 days written notice prior to course start date. Individuals who do not participate and fail to send written notice prior to the deadline will be charged full course tuition. You may send a substitute to attend the course in your place. Extenuating circumstances will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Technical Requirements:

Internet access:
Course participants need to arrange network access through their local internet service provider (ISP). Participants may wish to arrange for broadband access to the internet via a cable modem, DSL or a satellite connection. Dial up connections will work, but may hamper the speed at which coursework can be completed. We cannot provide support for your network connection nor can we help you with any home networking equipment such as firewalls, routers or switches.

Software:
Familiarity with web-based applications, word processing software and email applications will be helpful. The course will be facilitated using Blackboard™ distance learning software.

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