This article presents a method for using mind mapping to assess social learning outcomes in collaborative environmental restoration and participatory natural resource management initiatives. Using mind mapping for preassessment and postassessment can reveal changes in individual and collective thinking about critical social and ecological issues. On the basis of results from four youth-based environmental restoration programs in Boulder, Colorado, and New York and Cattaraugus Territory, New York, we suggest that mind mapping can serve as an effective data collection strategy and as a method for analyzing cognitive change in environmental restoration programs and civic ecology more broadly.