Potential Impacts of a Storytelling Workshop at Different Levels
Understanding the potential impacts of a storytelling workshop can help anticipate the kinds of changes it may support and help plan for how these can be recognised and strengthened over time. Impacts can occur at multiple levels, from individual awareness to broader policy change:
Intrapersonal change takes place within an individual, and involves shifts in knowledge, attitudes, emotions, or skills.
- Self-reflection and empowerment: Sharing or preparing a story encourages people to reflect on their values, memories, and relationships with food, nature, and culture. Recognising that their knowledge and experiences matter can increase confidence and foster a sense of agency.
- Awareness of biodiversity and emotional connections: Narratives can reveal how everyday practices such as eating, growing, or cooking are connected to wider ecological systems. These connections often emerge in more powerful and motivating ways than factual information alone.
Interpersonal change occurs between people, who influence and learn from each other through conversation, shared activities, and mutual support.
- Trust, empathy, and knowledge exchange: Sharing and listening to stories can foster empathy and trust, while opening spaces for dialogue and mutual learning. Participants often draw on one another’s cultural practices and ecological understandings, creating new forms of shared knowledge.
Community-level change involves shifts in the practices, norms, or structures of a group, organisation, or place-based network.
- Sense of belonging and collaboration: Storytelling can contribute to the creation of collective identity and memory. Shared narratives may inspire initiatives such as gardens, campaigns, or events, and can strengthen bonds across a community.
Policy-level change happens when decision-making processes, regulations, or public strategies are influenced.
- Shifting organisational culture and inclusion: Stories can humanise planning and governance processes, creating space for knowledge that is often absent from formal debates. This can influence how institutions frame their priorities.
- Democratising knowledge: Storytelling elevates experiential and local perspectives, reshaping ideas of who counts as an expert and whose voices are considered legitimate.
- Catalysing advocacy or policy change: When stories are presented in policy forums, exhibitions, or consultations, they can act as catalysts for reframing issues and shaping decisions at organisational or policy level.
Ways to Measure Impact:
For more detailed guidance on measuring change, see the Impact module. Three techniques that may work well include:
- The Stories: The stories themselves might signal the impact of the work of the Learning Community, such as a participant describing a change in their daily habits or a new initiative they started.
- Participant testimonials: Gather accounts of how the workshop has influenced how participants perceive themselves, relate to others, or make choices.
- Observation and documentation: Notice and record changes in how people interact and communicate. This might include new topics entering everyday conversation, a shift in how issues are discussed, signs that people are more at ease engaging with one another, or moments where biodiversity is mentioned in unexpected contexts.
In this video Sandra Karner explains the impacts of the Biodiversity Storytelling workshop in PLANET4B:
Adaptations to the Method
There are several adaptations that build on a Biodiversity Storytelling method, including variations in format, theme, and content.
In this video Sandra Karner explains how a Biodiversity Storytelling workshop can be adapted to ensure all participants feel welcome and are able to participate fully
Follow-up Research Activity
Following the method, offer a short research activity to build on ideas that emerged. If the group has access to the internet via phones or laptops, or if you have brought books, magazines, or printed materials, invite storytellers to explore one or two interesting points that came up in their stories. For example, they might look into the biodiversity of a vegetable they mentioned, the cultural significance of a food in another region, or environmental issues related to a farming practice. Storytellers can then reconvene and share what they discovered with the rest of the group. This process not only deepens the learning but also shifts the dynamic from personal reflection to shared inquiry.
Story Adaptations:
The stories told during use of the method within the PLANET4B gender and urban gardening case study were autobiographical stories, using food as a guiding artifact. Other story options include:
Future Stories (when designing for change or transition)
Ask storytellers to tell a future story – imagining how a space, system, or community might look in 10 or 20 years. The story might be a letter written to a future generation describing its changes and possibilities of the space or place. This exercise could compliment the Community Mapping Method, if a space is being designed, changed etc. - ask people to bring a story of the space to the mapping workshop.
Collective Stories (for group building or collaborative projects)
With a group that is familiar with each other, there might be an opportunity to move beyond individual stories and create small group activities that support the co-construction of a shared story. This could draw on shared memories, collective hopes, or imagined futures. More detail can be found in the Participatory Theatre Method.
Story Circles
Borrowed from community theatre and oral tradition practices, story circles involve small groups (up to 8 people) sitting together and taking turns to tell a story in response to a common prompt. Each participant responds in their own way, creating a shared narrative experience.
Speed Storytelling
Storytellers pair up and have 2–3 minutes each to tell a mini story in response to a prompt. After both have shared, they switch to a new partner. Prompts can be displayed or called out by the facilitator (e.g. 'Tell a story about a meal you remember', 'a place that changed', 'a food you’ve grown or foraged').
Living Library
This method turns the room into a 'library' where storytellers are the books. Each person creates a short title for their story (e.g. The Tomato that Taught me to Cook) and is available to be 'borrowed'. Small groups or individuals choose someone to listen to, then rotate. This creates a respectful one-to-one or small-group dialogue environment.
Story Weaving
Start a group story with a single sentence (e.g. 'There was a vegetable that was grown…') and go around the circle adding one sentence at a time. Afterwards, reflect collectively on the themes, or values that emerged.
Story Stations
Set up storytelling stations around the room, each with a different prompt, question, or image. Storytellers move between stations and leave a short response – a note, drawing, or audio recording. At the end, the contributions from each station are gathered and shared back with the whole group to acknowledge and reflect on the ideas that emerged.
Story Formats:
Some participants may not feel comfortable sharing stories verbally. Offering alternative forms of expression can make the workshop more inclusive:
- Drawing or visual storytelling
- Movement or dance
- Music or sound
- Writing or poetry
