EfS Momentum in The Hudson Valley

/
efs-hudsonvalley

The Cloud Institute is working with partners to build momentum for Education for Sustainability and Youth Leadership in the Hudson Valley! It is amazing how the stars are aligning across time and areas of expertise in this place we now call home. Here’s a brief timeline of our activities to date:

  • 2014 My family bought a small farm in the Hudson Valley to build soil fertility, absorb carbon, clean the air, produce delicious goat cheese, create favorable conditions for Bees and restore and regenerate the land and forest we fell in love with. Since we are spending more and more time up here, it made sense for me to explore whether there was any interest in Educating for Sustainability among schools and districts in the Hudson Valley.

  • 2018 and 2019 I co-designed and presented at Omega Institute’s Drawdown Learn Conference with esteemed colleagues, librarians, educators, students and community members at large.

  • 2018 I Began conversations with Lynne Cherry, film maker at Young Voices for the Planet to discuss how we can work together to use her films documenting strategic acts of youth leadership for sustainability to teach and learn for sustainability in the schools and districts I work with. Lynne subsequently moved to the Hudson Valley.

  • 2019 I began planning with the Beacon School District to start educating for sustainability as a district priority. As a first step, two teachers from the district attended the 2019 EfS Curriculum Design Studio, and we have continued to work together through personalized curriculum coaching to develop an exemplar we can share with the rest of the faculty in Beacon.

  • January 2020 Dorna Schroeter, retired Director of the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES Center for Environmental Education and friend to the Cloud Institute just released ‘How An Idea From Nature Changed Our World - A Children's Story to Engage and Inspire Young People with Biomimicry’. Dorna and I worked together on the PNW BOCES EfS Project some years ago, and she was also involved in co-designing the Drawdown Learn Conference. Dorna has lived in the Hudson Valley for years, and we are now scheming to work together in Dutchess County.

  • January 2020 I met with Dan Shornstein, Director of Education-outreach at the Ashokan Center (an Outdoor Education Center in the Catskill Mountain region of the Hudson Valley) and we began scheming about the possibilities of collaborating on a number of initiatives.

  • March 2020 I will facilitate the One Day EfS Intro for the Faculty and Staff of the Beacon Public Schools during the Spring Professional Development Day. During the Intro to EfS participants will: 1) develop a shared understanding and vocabulary of Sustainability and Education for Sustainability (EfS), 2) generate a personal rationale for educating for sustainability, 3) become inspired and hopeful about contributing to the shift toward a sustainable future through education.

  • March 2020 I will speak to the Dutchess County School Superintendents at Omega Institute.

  • April 2020 I will speak at The Dutchess County School Boards Association meeting to introduce the work of Educating for Sustainability.

It’s all happening in the Hudson Valley! Stay tuned for the continuing story and for the exemplars that will certainly be created and shared. – Jaimie P. Cloud