This animated poem, beautifully narrated by Jane Goodall, is both moving and inspiring. It invites us to reflect on the importance of nurturing reciprocal relationships with nature, the profound beauty that surrounds us, and the role we can all play in shaping a sustainable future.
Read MoreOur friends and colleagues at Green Ninja put together some useful resources to help New York State teachers prepare their students for the Science Tests.
Watch the full webinar recording featuring expert Matt d'Alessio or review key highlights and takeaways from the presentation.
Read MorePlanting the seeds for a sustainable future starts early for these young students. It's at the core of one charter school's mission from how it's built, to what it serves.
We are happy to share this CBS feature about Mundo Verde Public Charter School, a PreK-5 bilingual school that serves students across two campuses in Washington D.C. The Cloud Institute has been working with Mundo Verde for several years now because they are dedicated to educating for a sustainable future. It’s working!
Read MoreCelebrating 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.
Read MoreCheck out the Climate Change Education Resource Guide for Schools produced by the team at the Center for Sustainability and Climate Education at the Dutchess County BOCES. Find ideas, resources and activities to start the conversation about our climate and the actions that we, our students and colleagues can take as global citizens.
Read MoreThis is a great webinar that was hosted by the Center for Universal Education and Education International to discuss the path forward for education and climate action, and the recent Brookings policy brief “Unleashing the creativity of teachers and students to combat climate change: An opportunity for global leadership.”
Read MoreThe EfS Reservoir is a multi-media repository of exemplars aligned to the EfS Benchmarks. The exemplars include quality curriculum units, courses, assessments, performance criteria, student work samples and eventually stories, interviews, discussions, images, narration and film that will illustrate the contexts and the impact of this work in schools and communities. Register for free to access the collection.
Read MoreFor the past three years, I’ve taught a required graduate course on the Ethics of Sustainability in the Design for Social Innovation Program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. During this time, I’ve witnessed the unintended results of educating about unsustainability. Although my students come from all over the world, they have at least a few things in common at the beginning of the year. These young people report feeling depressed, hopeless and guilty. Many of these students, believing they hold degrees in sustainability, have become experts in its opposite--unsustainability. They are nervous at first at the thought of discussing the ethics of sustainability. They tell me that their professors were very effective at pointing out that it’s too late, that we’ve already exceeded too many critical thresholds and that there is no way back. Game over?
My response to them is always the same, “I think what your professors have actually been saying is that they cannot imagine and they don’t know how we are going to pull off the mid-course correction that is required if we want human and other life to flourish on Earth indefinitely. I think this has more to do with their imaginations, mental maps and knowledge base than it does our fate.” Game on.
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