How to Use This Site

This set of steps will better guide the student, group, or facilitator through the Understanding Environmental Disputes website. We encourage you to come back to this page frequently as you navigate the site, to ensure that you have completed the necessary reading and activities associated with each step. Though the site is designed to allow users to browse the materials as they wish, the following steps will prevent users from becoming overwhelmed or sidetracked with the wealth of information featured on this site.

Step One: Introduction to the Website and the EFC Project

Before you get too far into the site, please examine the background information about the EFC project, as well as the general introduction to and overview of the website. The background materials will better orient you -- the student or user of the site -- to the larger project, and describe how the site might best be used, given the amount of time that you have available.

Step Two: Explore the Historical Context

Upon entering the website, you will encounter a number of documents that describe the historical context surrounding the current conflict, including the feature edition of The Silver Times, the county's major newspaper that features coverage of the current events surrounding the growth-related environmental disputes that the region is facing. Be sure to also reference the map of Silver County growth regions. Also reprinted with this edition are full-text, and quite detailed executive summaries describing the proposed growth management, forest management, and toxic material management plans. Please read over these articles, documents, and supplementary information to get up to speed on the history and context of the current conflict.

Step Three: The Current Conflict

In this step, you will move beyond historical considerations, and begin exploring the immediate situation. You will read up on the notes and discussions about the community’s various interest groups and institutions, by reading their mission statements and various forms of literature describing their roles and positions. You are urged to enter this portion of the site and read through the documents, just as concerned citizens would as they tried to “catch up” on the events and happenings of their home community.

Next, you will read various past articles from the county’s newspaper, The Silver Times, which is devoted to covering the region’s environmental challenges. The articles and guest editorials describe past and recent efforts to deal with the problems, along with key arguments favoring and opposing alternative approaches.

Step Four: Real-World Links

In this step, you are urged to examine the real-world links that are included in the various documents and websites for the various interest groups. This allows you to examine this fictional conflict in the context of other, real-world settings, and to read up on disputes, trends, and resolution efforts in other communities. All told, the materials presented in steps two, three, and four provide a basis for the core of the program -- an analysis of frames and framing.

Step Five: Frames and Framing

After reading through these materials, you are urged to read the theoretical discussions of frames and framing. In these framing sections, you are introduced to the concept of conflict framing and how this theoretical paradigm can be applied to real-life conflict settings. After reading the introductory and background information on framing theory, including the sections on understanding your own frames and the frames of others, you can then go back to the Silver County materials, to examine how each of the various groups and individuals characterize themselves and others (characterization and identity frames), assess factual claims (fact frames), evaluate conflict management processes or perceived policy options (conflict management (or process) frames), assess environmental vulnerability (views of nature frames), and determine possible outcomes (gain/loss frames).

Step Six: Reflection, Discussion, and Evaluation of Frames

The main activity of the framing website will take place as you, the user of the site, reflect on the case study and apply the theories of frames and framing to the case scenario. This site includes a framing training guide, which provides a series of questions to assist the facilitator or instructor in discussion and reflection of the activity as a whole. The framing discussion also contains direct hyperlinks to scenario sections demonstrating each idea. This will give users the skills they need to apply frames-based analysis to other parts of the site and to real-world environmental conflicts.

Step Seven: Personal Reflection

While the bulk of the program will focus on giving people the skills that they need to understand how others frame conflicts, a major part of the program encourages you, the user, to reflect upon your own personal framing decisions. Most framing decisions are made at a subconscious level, with individuals largely unaware of the importance of the decisions that they are making.

Step Eight: Further Reading and Research

This training program provides an optional opportunity to delve further into the framing literature. We provide links to a wealth of print- and Web-based resources for further reading on framing and framing theory, framing-based interventions, growth and development conflicts, ecosystem management, and toxic material remediation, as well as an extensive listing of resources documenting similar ongoing conflicts in the United States and abroad.

This site is also linked to a specially-tailored page of links from CRInfo, the Conflict Resolution Information Source. Additionally, the site will provide direct access to resources from the Intractable Conflict Knowledge Base (ICKB) project, to further guide in-depth analysis of the complex issues introduced with this training program.