About OCOE

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For years CNRP has worked to provide better quality of life for citizens, particularly in youth engagement and technology learning. Our latest project, Our Community Our Environment: Engaging Youth to Link the Environment and Information Technology (OCOE) promises to deliver another great experience for Tallahassee youth. Through this program, students in grades 6-12 who reside in the Tallahassee-Leon County area will engage in a hands-on mobile application learning experience.

OCOE, created in response to a HASTAC DML5 grant competition conducted by the MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla and others (http://www.hastac.org) was initially implemented with great success this past summer in Washington, DC. CNRP collaborated with Neighborhood Associates Corporation and the Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative to deliver an outstanding learning model that merged the growth industry sectors of Environment and Information Technology.
 

We are pleased to report that OCOE will present a workshop at the Sustainable You conference January 27-28th in Tallahassee. In preparation, we are conducting a citywide mobile application contest in partnership with the Tallahassee Parks and Recreation department.
 

HOW THE CONTEST WORKS
Participants will work to design and publish their own unique mobile applications, websites and blogs utilizing research, images and video footage they create while in the program. They will learn to express their ideas in clean prose as well as create and deliver presentations based on their experiences.
 

There will be sustainability and mobile app boot camps held within each of the participating youth organizations and recreation centers January 6-10, followed by a series of Google hangouts to support youth questions as they build applications related to local environmental sustainability.

 

The first round of competition will take place on January 23rd. Students will compete on the center level for a chance to win laptops, tablets and gift certificates. The winners will move on to compete for the $1,000 grand prize at the Sustainable You competition on January 27th.

HOW YOU OR YOUR ORGANIZATION CAN BE INVOLVED

 

Panelists
We are building an expert panel for the Sustainable You conference to discuss our theme, Engaging Youth to Link the Environment and Information Technology. Professionals in the field and those with an insight into sustainability, technology or youth are welcome to join us. Please respond right away if you would are interested in joining this panel, slated for either January 27th or 28th.
 

Volunteers
We need collegiate volunteers to assist students with their application development. Since no coding is required, volunteers of all skill level are welcome. 

 

Partners
We would like to stand with schools, organizations and businesses that have an interest in building the OCOE program beyond this project. Please email cnrpinfo@gmail.com to discuss.

Incentives
As a business and community leader, we are asking you to assist us in providing incentives to our participants or you may wish to sponsor a team from one recreation center with a $500 donation. We envision awards to be a laptop or tablet (first prize), a Kindle (second), or a $50 gift certificate (third). All donations are tax deductible.
 

Students!
We need students to participate! Encourage students throughout the city to join the competition. Youth do NOT need to be affiliated with any recreation center although prizes will be awarded at the centers. Students can sign up for the contest by visiting www.ocoe.us or a local community center beginning December 19th.
 

It is our hope that we will do something amazing with this project as we work to inspire youth to become producers of digital content.

 

There is a world of opportunity that we intend to expose our youth to through OCOE. Are YOU in?