Posts in Sustainable Communities
Visiting Arbor Ridge Elementary School in Orlando, Florida

At the recent Green Schools National Conference in Orlando, Florida, we had the privilege to visit Arbor Ridge Elementary School. Arbor Ridge has received first place in the green schools recognition program, the Florida Green Apple award by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Green Ribbons Schools award by the US Department of Education.

We toured the school and the campus and a team of faculty members attended our afternoon workshop on vertical articulation of Education for Sustainability. Among many hey have composting in the cafeteria, a living garden.

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EFS: The Key to Sustainable Communities (Spoiler Alert!)

I have a confession to make. A ten year effort to help my community become sustainable has had limited success. Early enthusiastic progress, followed by a return to something resembling the status quo, has become a familiar pattern among the institutions in my town. Each experience starts with that same intoxicating esprit de corps, yet somehow, after the public’s attention shifts, things slowly end up fizzling out. This boom bust cycle leaves me wondering— if our local institutions can’t move beyond business as usual, how can we, as a society, ever hope to achieve a sustainable future?

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Students from the South Bronx Green the Hamptons
Steve Ritz has served as an educator in South Bronx for 12 years, and has been a friend of The Cloud Institute for almost as long. Steve has consistently generated 100% passing rates on NYS Regents Exams in Math and Science with some of the most challenging students in NYC. He has personally sponsored and arranged scholarships for students, facilitated monetary donations as well as hundreds of computers for South Bronx Youth. Steve recently founded the Green Teen Program and has secured funding for over 2,200 local jobs in line with cultivating minds and harvesting hope.
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