Town Meeting Reflection

Sheryl Cunningham, Wittenberg University, Communication

Summary

Students were asked to reflect on a specific set of questions after the Town Meeting but before completing the final stakeholder map. This is for a communication course, so students were asked to reflect on their communication as a stakeholder during the meeting, the efficacy of town meetings for solving complex problems, and which stakeholders they think are most responsible for solving the problem.

Learning Goals

The overall goal is reflection on what occurred in the town meeting during class. They are thinking about themselves as stakeholders and how being a stakeholder can enable or constrain how one communicates about a complex environmental problem.

Context for Use

This activity is a follow-on to the Wicked Problem of Water Quality in the Mississippi River Watershed module.

This writing assignment happens outside of class. Students need to have completed the town hall meeting in order to to the assignment. Students in my course had already discussed issues of environmental justice and "sacrifice zones."