Posts in Curriculum Design Studio
Winter Newsletter | Celebrating Big Ideas

Celebrating Big Ideas
EfS Benchmarks for Individual and Social Learning

Big Ideas are also known as “Enduring Understandings”. They operate at the level of principles that are transferable. They describe the concepts that students will understand, and that will have lasting value in the real world over time.

The EfS Benchmarks for Individual and Social Learning recognizes the processes that include a whole system of dynamic and interconnected elements considered essential to educating for a sustainable future. The Big Ideas collectively frame the other essential elements of EfS and distinguish EfS from other fields of study.

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Spring Newsletter | Play The New Fish Game Online and Summer PD for Educators

Thanks to all of you who supported the upgrade of The Fish Game Online and to the team at Funatomic - educational game developers extraordinaire. The new Fish Game is now live! There are many new features to play with, including the ability to choose the number of fisher folk with whom you are fishing in each game; the ability to announce your intentions or not, and the ability to do or not do what you promised. You’ll see that everything you do and don’t do makes a difference. Let us know what you think!!!

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Spring Newsletter | Remote Learning for Teachers and School Administrators

What perspectives are needed to weather our current social climate? What knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits of mind do we need to instill in young people to prepare them for tomorrow? How do successful leaders manage remote teams and achieve goals during times of change and uncertainty? What role will vision, imagination, and intention play in creating a future that is vibrant, resilient and thriving? We will explore these ideas and more in this free webinar series.

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Winter Newsletter | EfS Professional Learning Opportunities

We are committed to the roles that teaching, learning, and thinking play in contributing to the shift toward a sustainable future. Our work with school systems and higher education institutions revolves around the curriculum, instruction, and assessment aspects of Education for Sustainability, as well as the strategic planning and leadership development that is required for lasting change.

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Fishing for Cognizance - EfS... An Intern’s Perspective

Learning About EfS From An Intern’s Perspective

“Well, I knew nothing about sustainability at all!” Nozomi Sakata explains when asked how she decided to apply for an internship at The Cloud Institute a few weeks ago. It turns out that she is simply graceful at stumbling. Happening on the Cloud Institute through an email from her school’s internship program, Nozomi was mainly interested in the fact that it produced innovative curriculum platforms; the Institute’s focus in Education for Sustainability presented, more than anything else, a foreign concept to explore. In that same happenstance way, she recently happened to see that Jaimie Cloud was presenting a two-day workshop called “The Essentials of Sustainability Education Workshop” at Columbia University Teacher’s College, where Nozomi is a student. The opportunity was, she explains, “a chance to learn about the ideology of EfS from an introductory perspective

Nozomi isn’t an anomaly. All the interns here at the Cloud Institute have different motivations and reasons as to why they were drawn to this office, providing an interesting window into the many facets of EfS.

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Reflection on the EfS Curriculum Design Studio
Last summer, I had the pleasure of taking one of the most productive professional development workshops in my sixteen years of teaching. The Cloud Institute had asked participants of their Education for Sustainability Curriculum Design Studio to come prepared with a lesson plan or unit which would be worked on and viewed through the lens of the EfS standards. This made all the difference. I chose our fall science unit on Water/Salt Marsh Ecology.
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From the Field— “I Matter! A Systems Approach to 3rd Grade Field Trips”
In the summer of 2010 I attended the Cloud Institute’s EfS Curriculum Design Studio and rewrote our Monarch Butterfly Curriculum to integrate systems thinking. Although monarchs are still the stars of our curriculum, our third grade team really wanted the students to learn that they have a real and genuine influence on the systems in which they are a part: they do matter and can affect change!
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States, Stories and Sustainability, a Fourth Grade Project at The College School
We have each been teachers for 12 years and most of our experience has been at The College School (TCS), a pre-eighth grade, independent school in St. Louis, Missouri. Sustainability has always been a value at TCS, and yet is has been somewhat intangible. We were fortunate to attend a week-long seminar at The Cloud Institute with a team from The College School.
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Thinking Different About Our Lives
Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School is a community of active, self-reliant, and lifelong learners. It is a center of meaningful inquiry, research, understanding, and communication. Our school offers integrated instruction in the arts, technology, sciences, and humanities and promotes an environment that fosters self-esteem, responsibility, and respect. Our faculty is composed of outstanding teachers who are committed to providing their students with the best education possible.
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