Our approach to trainings, workshops, and outreach centers the participants – what do they want to learn or practice, how do they want to engage, and how can we design (and evaluate and adapt) programs and activities to be truly inclusive and effective?
TRAININGS
We generally take a multi-layer approach to developing trainings:
- Core mindsets and skills: Critical thinking, systems thinking, and mindfulness
- Knowledge: Broad background information (as needed) for the topic at hand, then efficiently moving to specific information needed
- Specific technical skills: The skills needed to carry out work in the given topic/area of interest, ranging from cross-cutting skills (e.g., Microsoft Office, presentation skills, data entry and management, writing) to research methodologies (e.g., interview techniques, field surveys) to basic project management (e.g., preparing a research budget).
Trainings include: Foundational skills (e.g. proposal and report writing, research design and processes, interview methods, data management, academic reading for ESL students, presentation skills; critical thinking, systems thinking, mindfulness); Specific topics (e.g. rapid assessment of marine megafauna bycatch in fisheries, gender issues in natural resource management, marine conservation topics, presenting research to stakeholders); Research team training
FACILITATION
Facilitation experience in: stakeholder consultations; research and planning workshops; discussion-based research symposium for stakeholders
OUTREACH
Outreach examples: Village awareness campaigns on marine mammal conservation; public presentations; guiding outreach strategy for Myanmar Coastal Conservation Lab

Moment
I told Papa all about what you’ve been doing, all of your great progress. I saw him, fleetingly, this morning. He was thrilled, of course. Profoundly. In awe, with that gentle, groundswell of a “Wow!” and raised eyebrows and wide, beaming eyes. That’s it. That’s all I got, before my rational mind kicked in. ItContinue reading “Moment”

Skies Revolve
It is oppressively sunny, blaring, glaring. I’m in the upstairs living room with heat streaming in the rows of windows, sitting compressed under the heavy air, bleary eyed, frantically hunched over the computer, disheveled.

Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists
Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists About a year ago, I had a mini-revelation about international conservation that made me feel marginally better about my seeming inability to stick to the really excellent goals I regularly set for myself. I was once again (as many times before) growing frustrated with my tendency to craftContinue reading “Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists”

Journey Mapping: A research tool for empathy
As a conservation researcher whose work focuses on the interactions between conservation efforts and communities, a critically important part of my job is to better understand people.

Minutes & lifetimes
Minutes & lifetimes Ten minutes. Ten minutes of sitting on the edge of a pool somewhere in a suburb of Jakarta, eyes closed, breathing steadily, legs dangling in the water as I tried to not let the occasional mosquito fly-by distract me. At the end of yet another harried day of passively commuting through Jakarta’sContinue reading “Minutes & lifetimes”

Why we need conservation realism
Welcome to the Conservation Realist publication!
In the conservation world, there are often starry-eyed calls for optimism. “Hope spots” and “bright spots.” A common rallying cry: “We have to show that it’s not all doom and gloom!”
What’s often ignored is that there is a vast and rich middle ground between optimism and doom. It’s realism. And we need more of it to be incorporated in mainstream conservation conversations and actions.

Design Thinking & Conservation
With thoughtful and responsible use, Design Thinking can substantially contribute to more effective, equitable, and ethical conservation practices.

Developing an Innovative Conservation Training Program
At the Myanmar Coastal Conservation Lab (MCCL) at Point B Design + Training, we’ve developed a thoughtful, remarkably effective training program to build research and conservation skills and knowledge and to cultivate the passion that many youths have for environmental work. We designed this as part of the Gulf of Mottama Project’s (GoMP) Conservation andContinue reading “Developing an Innovative Conservation Training Program”

Environmentalism in a Pandemic: The importance of critical, empathetic, and future-driven thinking
Written in April – some thoughts and quick information search on what the pandemic actually means for the environment, beyond thoughtless “nature is healing” memes. Posted in the Age of Awareness publication on Medium.