Item B: Ordinance Concerning Goal 5 Natural Resources Study

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To 'conduct the self-assessment, the community developed an employment and training program, known as The Discovery Team, that provides on-thejob training for high school students, including "at-risk" students. The Cis pus AMA, the Cowlitz Valley Ranger District (formerly the Randle and Packwood Ranger Districts), the grass roots community group. and PNW researchers all collaborated in this effort. 'The project Involved Integration across and within management, research, the school, and the community: Kruger explains. 'With collaboration emerging as an important issue for managers, the proj- ect provided a unique opportunity to both participate In and study an innovative collaborative process: The research addressed the question. Can we Improve the usefulness of the social assessment process bY engaging community members as co-researchers? The process developed in trying to answer this question created a model that can be used bY other communi- ties so they are better understood as deci- sions are made that will affect them. RESEARCHERS AS FACILITATORS AND MENTORS ~e project was initiated in 1995 when 25 high school student- researchers, with three teacher- supervisors took on the summertime task of learning more about the White Pass area, its history; its local residents. why they lived in the valley; what about this place was Important to them, and the relations between the community and the forest. The two research facilitators-Kruger and Amanda Graham of the University of Washington-had three primary responsi- bilities. The first was to identify and provide oversight for the research methods used in the project. The methods chosen allowed various ways and venues for gathering information, thereby encouraging a broad range of participation. Methods Included a community forum, individual and group Interviews, brainstorming activities, joint meetings between the project committee and the student -researchers, and collecting and analyzing documents and photography, and mapping activities. The second responsibility of the researchers was to assist the students- who were necessarily inexperienced in this kind of endeavor--in becoming researchers and carrying out the study as much as possible themselves. This linked directly to the third responsibility, which was to avoid directing the process, to allow it to evolve and to muddle through with the local participants. To help with this process, the two researchers moved to the community for the duration of the first year of the project. "We had to convince the teachers and students that they were the experts: UNCOVERING THE VALUE OF PLACE Student researchers were given a notebook and instructions on how to keep research notes as they Inter- viewed people, read through documents, followed up with phone calls, or obtained new leads. At the end of each work day. students were given 30 minutes of reflec- tive time to consider what they had learned and felt that day. The narratives they devel- oped were incorporated into a project notebook. What they were doing. Kruger explains, was beginning to recognize place as a cultural system. In other words, our sense of a place includes how we Interact and have In the past Interacted with the people, activities, and events within the community. The meanings we give our communities are held within us. and thus will emerge only as a study such as this progresses, deepening ou~ connection to our Individual feelings and values, and to others with whom we share experience. Student researchers came away from the project with a far stronger sense of the White Pass area as a valuable and valued community. A community forum, for exam- ple, provided a stage for students to visit with oldtlmers eager to share their memories. Subjects ranged from Native American history and family reunions to noods and life before electricity. 'Participation in this assessment, for every- body, Increased awareness and appreciation of the individual. the community, and the Kruger recalls. "It took a little while, but then it was very rewarding seeing the changes in them all, as they stepped up to take risks and do things they previously wouldn't have tried." For the students, this was often as simple as learning that they could go up to people they didn't know and ask them questions. As local participants gained confidence, an important goal of the researchers was Inherently being met communities with the capacity and skills to conduct this kind of activity themselves, Kruger says. "Stepping outside the traditional role of a scientist and becoming a learner alongside the community members who are discover- Ing their community for themselves results In far different knowledge from when researchers act independently," she says. relationship between the community and the nearbY forest. along with those respon- sible for forest management," Kruger notes. Furthermore, the forest became much dearer as an integrated whole, consisting of trees, other forest products, wildlife. fish, water. recreation, aesthetics, and other values. Indeed, she adds, other research suggests that community studies that do not support collaboration and participation can affect Individual and community well-being and community capacity to adapt to change. They also can destabilize community and the sense of connectedness to a place, as that place is redefined by "outsiders" or professional planners. n ~