This post provides information for students in Dr. Tai Munro’s Sustainability 301 course about SAPAA’s role and operations. The project will deliver training in outdoor literacy and emphasizes the need for creating a certification course for visiting protected areas.
This post is specifically written for the students enrolled Dr. Tai Munro’s course, Sustainability 301. However, all students working with SAPAA are welcome to review to learn the basics of the organization. A link to a YouTube video summarizing this post is also available [PENDING]. The following format is per Dr. Munro’s request.
Who Am I, My Role
Your host for this project is me, Frank Potter. I am the President of SAPAA as well as its webmaster. The board has broad experience across various disciplines; their biographies are available here: Contact Us.
Stewards of Alberta’s Protected Areas Association (SAPAA) strives to provide a best in class learning opportunity for the students. Because SAPAA invests considerable time and effort in the students, it runs its projects using these philosophies:
- One Neck to Choke. Single project manager selected by the team.
- Let’s Talk. Students juggle many priorities. We can discuss scope or pivot.
- Think Resume, Not Grade. Grades are important, employment more so.
- Consulting Engagement. You are treated as if your team is a consulting company hired to complete the engagement on time, budget, and specification.
- Let’s Meet on Friday. Weekly meetings are run on Fridays, time to be mutually agreed upon.
- Student Field Trip. Tentatively set for either Saturday or Sunday September 26 or 27.
What Does SAPAA Do?
Our role has evolved over the past decade. When started in 2001, the intent was to be a guild of sorts for a then very active provincial government Volunteer Stewardship program. This program recruited citizens to visit and report on sites that fell under the first of three provincial legislative frameworks: the Wilderness Areas, Ecological Reserves, Natural Areas and Heritage Rangelands (WAERNAHR) Act, Parks Act, and the Willmore Wilderness Act.
For a variety of reasons, the government run volunteer program has fallen by the wayside. Since 2023, SAPAA has tried to answer the question, ‘Can a voluntary organization, such as SAPAA, field a program akin to the one formerly run by the province?‘.
In answering this question, SAPAA strives to ‘do’ the following:
- Maintain information about the protected areas covered by the WAERNAHR Act (this website).
- Collect information about protected areas, with a current focus on WAERNAHR lands.
- Support other nonprofit organizations and individuals who share SAPAA objectives.
Furthering Reading on What SAPAA Does
For the uninitiated, it is recommended that you visit these links and, in the order, presented.
- Volunteer Stewardship – Backgrounder | SAPAA
- CBC Story – Volunteer Stewardship Program | SAPAA
- A Short Selected History of SAPAA | SAPAA
More Background (including past student site visits!)
How Does Project 11 Help?
Project 11 – Level 1 & 2 Course and Certification Design ties into the last of SAPAA’s objectives, supporting individuals and organizations. The problem for both is confidence and knowledge to safely visit a protected area and report on its condition.
When the former provincial government program started, many individuals had these skills through hunting, outdoor sports, youth groups (e.g. Scouting, Guides, Cadets, etc.), or learned through family traditions. Fast forward twenty five or more years and this ‘Outdoor Literacy‘ can no longer be counted upon from potentially interested volunteers who want to help.
For SAPAA, asking an individual to visit a protected area without an assurance of these skills can lead to legal and even criminal consequences. Per Alberta’s Health and Safety (OHS) legislation, volunteers are considered unpaid employees. In an extreme case, a well meaning but outdoor-novice volunteer may lead to a citation under the OHS Act.
Beyond mitigating legal and reputational risks, the project will help individuals have a better experience when visiting the sites. Finally, setting public policy about natural areas is difficult if the populace is ‘Outdoor Illiterate‘.
The Seven Successes of Student Projects
Dr. Tai’s question is ‘What do you hope the students will bring to working on this project?‘. This question is answered in the context of how SAPAA runs its projects. To start, there are four actors (the Program, Instructor, Organization, and Student involved. Each has their own needs as well as contribution. This model is discussed further in The Seven Successes of Student Projects model.
Four Actors and Three Needs/Contributions in a Student Project
SAPAA will provide to the student an interesting project and an opportunity to test drive working in the real world. In exchange, it is hoped the students will bring to Project 11 – Level 1 & 2 Course and Certification Design the following:
- Enthusiasm or at least feigned-interest in visiting a remote Natural Area.
- A ‘use-case’ example of what a typical volunteer may have relative to the skills to be trained.
- Personal experience and knowledge seemingly unrelated but surprisingly relevant to the project.
What Will Be Delivered?
Unfortunately, the SUST 301 course has limited time to devote to this project. Nevertheless, they can play a critical role by answering at least the first 3 question:
- Perform a market scan for similar course in Canada, the US, Europe, or Australia/New Zealand.
- Interview designated SAPAA Members to identify what content should be included and its relative priority (note, the discussions will be coordinated by SAPAA and run under its ethics and communications protocols).
- Build course content to address the existing and potential learning elements in the SAPAA Operational/Safety plan.
- Review the content with stakeholders, revising as required.
- Identify existing content from third parties covering the content.
- Design a learning system within SAPAA’s technical and financial constraints.
Each of the above steps builds on the previous. Thus, the market scan may identify the ‘perfect’ program that can be retrofitted into SAPAA’s context meaning a faster progression through subsequent seps. Alternatively, if such a program does not exist, more time and effort may be required working on the second and third steps.
Steps four to six are only as capacity allows. In addition, while there are survival courses out there, this program makes the assumption that the person will be sleeping in their own bed at the end of the day. Deciding what to NOT include in the syllabus will be as much of a challenge as what TO include.