by Joshua Stearns, SCA Board of Directors and Alumnus

While I have written a few short posts on the intersection between community, service, conservation, and social change, there is a lot more to say. Luckily there are a lot of fantastic people out there talking about and working on these issues. I wanted to pass along a few great sites to help continue this conversation and hopefully turn you onto a few new resources out there on the web. Most of the descriptions are from the organizations own website, though I have added my own thoughts here and there. Are these the most common links? No. Is this an extensive list? No. These are just a few gems that I don’t think enough people know about, and that really capture some of the issues I have been thinking and writing about here on the blog recently. Please add you own thoughts and links in the comments section.

Eagle Eye Institute  - http://www.eagleeyeinstitute.org
Based in Somerville, Massachusetts, Eagle Eye Institute is dedicated to developing and disseminating innovative environmental education programs that transform the lives of urban youth through hands-on exploratory learning on the environment and career bridging to natural resource fields.  Eagle Eye Institute strives to make the natural environment more accessible to urban people with a focus on urban youth.

Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture -  http://www.fpc.edu/monadnockinstitute/
Founded at Franklin Pierce College in 1996, the Monadnock Institute of Nature, Place and Culture seeks to foster the creation of a place-grounded existence for individuals and communities in the Monadnock ‘Region of New Hampshire and beyond. Through research and through interdisciplinary programs in education, community development, environmental stewardship, and regional heritage, the Monadnock Institute promotes intellectual understanding of and direct experience in the values of place.

WorldChanging  - http://www.worldchanging.com
WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it’s here. We only need to put the pieces together.

Center for Neighborhood Technology  - http://www.cnt.org/
Since 1978, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has worked to show urban communities locally and all across the country how to develop more sustainably. With smarts, creativity and innovation, and before the term sustainable development was even widely used, CNT has been demonstrating its unique brand of sustainable development: development that is good for the economy and the environment; makes better use of existing resources and community assets; and improves the health of natural systems and the wealth of people—today and in the future.

The Environmental Justice Resource Center  - http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/
The Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University was formed in 1994 to serve as a research, policy, and information clearinghouse on issues related to environmental justice, race and the environment, civil rights, facility siting, land use planning, brownfields, transportation equity, suburban sprawl, and Smart Growth.

The Center for Whole Communities - http://www.wholecommunities.org
The Center for Whole Communities is a bridge. It is a bridge between the diverse elements of the conservation movement, and a bridge between our culture today and the new emerging story about people and the land.

The Trust for Public Lands’ Center for Land and People – http://www.tpl.org
The mission of TPL’s Center for Land and People is to: Foster the connection between people and special places, Explore why this connection is so important, Make the case that conservation in the 21st century must include a sharper focus on the interrelationship of land, people, and community.

And finally a few book for those of you who link hard-covers more than hyperlinks:
The Quest For Environmental Justice: Human Rights and the Politics of Pollution, by Robert D. Bullard
The Environmental Justice Reader: Politics, Poetics, & Pedagogy, by Joni Adamson, Mei Mei Evans, and Rachel Stein
Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice, by Julian Agyeman