We focus on increasing citizen involvement because people are an important element of a conservation plan.

People factors and issues are often described in four categories: natural resources, social and cultural, economic, legal and policy. These factors are interrelated and each plays an important role in influencing how individuals make decisions and act in their everyday lives. As a result, conservation plans are more likely to be effective to the extent that they consider and integrate all four of the factors.

To incorporate people factors in your conservation plan, follow lessons in this course to discover:

• What questions to ask.
• What tools to use to gather social science information.
• How to use the tools and how to analyze results.
• How to use results to select outreach techniques that satisfy audience needs

Course goals: The purpose for the course is to help you build skills and confidence in identifying and analyzing behavior change opportunities. Throughout the course, you will be drafting a plan for increasing citizen involvement in an environmental situation you are working on. By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Identify a specific audience
• Figure out what you want to know about members of your audience
• Figure out the best way to gather audience information
• Apply answers when you design your outreach initiative 

NEXT:

Focus on behavior change with Lesson 1.2, Take Home Ideas.

The Changing Public Behavior Project and resources are based upon work supported by the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (CSREES), U.S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2006-51130-03749.