Cohousing-L Mailing List: Call for Articles, Communities #147: Education for Sustainability

[Communities Editor (editor]

Hello,

/Communities/ magazine is now seeking articles for issue #147, 
“*Education for Sustainability*.” The issue will be out in June 2010.

Please send your article idea to editor [at] ic.org by *Monday, December 28, 
2009*, or sooner if possible.

Your final article must reach us by *Monday, February 15, 2010*.

1. Theme articles: /*Education for Sustainability*/

   /possible questions to address (feel free to pick and choose or
   innovate):/ 

   * As background info., please let us know if your group has a
     mission related to sustainability, and how you define it. Do you
     educate others about sustainable living? If so, how? Do you hold
     courses on permaculture, organic gardening, or natural building?
     Teach about sustainable economics or culture? Focus on simple
     living, land stewardship, and ecology? Host interns or
     apprentices? Offer workshops, give tours of your site, or share
     information at outside events? Do you use the internet or other
     media as part of your educational activities?

   * What challenges have you faced in educating others about
     sustainability, or in achieving sustainability yourselves?

   * How do sustainability educational programs and activities impact
     your functioning as a group? How do they affect relationships
     within your community? How do they affect you personally? How do
     they affect your relationship with the wider culture?

   * Do you experience trade-offs between an outside mission of serving
     the world and your ability to maintain connection and well-being
     within your group? Are your sustainability-education activities
     sustainable for your community and its members?

   * Which have you found more effective: structured educational
     programs, or less formal ways of teaching and learning? A
     relatively academic or a more experiential educational approach?
     Who is best served by each kind of program?

   * Do you aim to educate many people in relatively more superficial
     ways (through, for example, a website or short videos), or fewer
     people in more depth (through, for example, extended internships)?
     Which approach is more satisfactory?

   * How much do people learn about the nuts and bolts of physical
     sustainability from you, and how much about the human dimensions
     of sustainability and community living? Is it possible for them to
     learn both? Do they arrive expecting to learn mostly about nuts
     and bolts, and discover that their greatest lessons are in
     community? Or vice versa?

   * Does your group charge money, or offer education for free? Is it
     challenging to set appropriate prices? Do you experience a tension
     between fulfilling your mission and earning a living wage?

   * What have you personally learned about sustainability in a
     community or cooperative setting? Have you participated in formal
     educational programs, or learned informally from cooperative groups?

   * What lessons can people in the wider culture draw from cooperative
     groups and their educational efforts in this area? How will we
     achieve sustainability on a larger scale?

[Please forward this email to anyone you think has a good story on this 
theme for /Communities/.]

2. We are also seeking articles about:

   * Creating community in your neighborhood;
   * Starting a new community;
   * Process and communication issues in community; and
   * Seeking community to join.

Suggested submission length is from 300 to 2500 words. We invite 
submissions ranging from short vignettes to extensively-developed 
articles, and also invite suggestions of recommended resources and 
article leads. We’re seeking articles written in a reader-friendly, 
popular-magazine style, rather than in an academic style. We ask 
contributors to share stories and experiences, not just ideas; write 
about challenges, not just successes; and describe specific situations 
that will help your story come alive for the reader. Before you start 
writing, please check http://communities.ic.org/submit.php or contact us 
for our full Writers’ Guidelines--and let us know your article idea so 
that we can give feedback on how it may fit into /Communities/. Contact 
Chris Roth at editor [at] ic.org or 541-937-2567 ext. 116.

If you don’t want to write an article but want to submit photos, please 
check http://communities.ic.org/submit.php or contact Yulia Zarubina at 
layout [at] ic.org for our Photo Guidelines.

*I. What **“**Submitting an Article**”** Means.* We will promise to read 
your article, but we may respectfully decline it and not publish it, or 
save it and publish it in a future issue. We also reserve the right to 
edit, shorten, or revise your article. Most of the time we contact 
authors about this ahead of time and get their comments, corrections, etc.

*II. Getting Permission Ahead of Time.* Please send the article only 
when you have permission from anyone you need it from, such as fellow 
community members. We endeavor to present a diversity of views on 
community, including controversial or critical views, yet we hope to do 
so in a respectful and cooperative manner and prevent antagonistic 
back-and-forth dialog in our letters-to-the-editor section. If the 
article may provoke controversy or strong reactions, please share your 
draft with group members to get their input before sending it to us. 
(Please see our Writers' Guidelines for additional details.)

*III. Publication Rights.* Once your article appears in /Communities/, 
we own first North American Publishing Rights. This means your article 
appears in /Communities/ the first time it appears in North America. In 
addition to appearing in /Communities/, your article may also appear on 
our website or in future compilations. You retain all other rights to 
it. If you’d like to use it elsewhere, you can, and we would appreciate 
your using an attribution line saying, “This article first appeared in 
/Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture/, (date); for further 
information on /Communities/: communities.ic.org <http://www.ic.org/>.”

*IV. Photos.* If we publish your article, we want to accompany it with 
compelling images that illustrate your subject. You know your subject 
best, so we are appealing to you for images. If others in your community 
or group like taking pictures, they might already have great images to 
go with your article. If you would like to submit an article but cannot 
supply photos, that’s fine; however, please give us plenty of advance 
notice so that if we use your article we can get an illustrator. Please 
check http://communities.ic.org/submit.php or email us for our full 
Photo Guidelines. We also appreciate an author photo to accompany your 
short (several-line) author bio.

Thanks for your contributions!

Chris Roth
Editor, /Communities/
editor [at] ic.org

--
Chris Roth
Editor, Communities
81868 Lost Valley Lane
Dexter, OR 97431
editor [at] ic.org
541-937-2567 ext. 116
communities.ic.org

for Communities advertising,
please contact John Stroup:
ads [at] ic.org
573-468-8822

for photos and layout,
please contact Yulia Zarubina:
layout [at] ic.org
910-617-6136