How Do Our Communities Connect to Nature?: A Program Evaluation Journey
- celeste346
- Mar 27
- 2 min read
Community Nature Connection (CNC) aims to provide programming that strengthens a connection to nature for our communities. With intent to create culturally relevant and community centered programs we embarked on an evaluative process that sought to understand:
How do our communities connect to nature?
The Context for Our Program Evaluation Work
In 2023-2024 CNC received the opportunity to join a Deep Evaluation Learning Journey Partnership (DEJP) working with emerging and expert evaluators and facilitated by North American Association for Environmental Education’s (NAAEE) eeVAL: Values-Based Environmental Education Evaluation. Through this journey and beyond it, CNC’s evaluation work has been guided by the eeVAL values of equity in motion, authentic engagement, deep curiosity, ongoing journey, quality redefined, and shared learning. To learn more about our experience in the eeVAL Deep Evaluation Learning Journey, check out the reflection piece we wrote about our participation.
Our Process
Our staff was trained by emerging and expert evaluators to implement focus groups with youth from our programs. After conducting the focus groups, our team began the work of transcription, coding, and thematic analysis internally by forming an Evaluation Committee. We created a summary of findings highlighting the four main themes we identified that answered our guiding questions:
How does the community define “connection to nature”?
How does the community define “sense of comfort in nature” and “sense of belonging in nature”?
What are the barriers that individuals face when accessing the outdoors?
Our Findings
Recommitting to Nature Connection Work
This process confirmed a lot of what we've noticed in our work through observation: a meaningful way to connect to nature and all of its positive benefits is through cultivating the understanding that nature is all around us and is part of us. When we see ourselves as nature and find it in everyday moments, we don't always need to travel to far-flung places to experience it. This mentality has the power to diminish physical access barriers. CNC will continue to break down existing barriers by providing transportation and guidance for outdoor experiences such as camping and beachcombing with trips to regional parks and beaches. Even so, our work at local parks within communities is just as important.
Facilitating the revelation that nature and its benefits can be accessed without the need to travel afar is and will continue to be a core element of our program design. In doing so, we aim to equip our communities with the ability to access the wellness benefits that come along with a connection to nature no matter where they are.
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