The Lovett School: Observations Tell the Story of EFS Impact

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Student-made Renewable Energy Machines Each school that Jaimie works with adopts Education for Sustainability (EFS) in a unique manner though there are specific conditions that support comprehensive and lasting change within the school community. 

The Lovett School in Atlanta, GA has been working with The Cloud Institute for the past year.  They recently partnered with Jaimie to determine the extent to which they were educating for sustainability.  The school provided an extensive list of classroom activities and lessons (UbD Stage 3), which Jaimie then analyzed and annotated.  This work and Jaimie’s recommendations are well documented in the Cloud Blog titled, “Is this Education for Sustainability?”.  Additional information about their progress can be found in Lovett’s,  Sustainability Program Annual Report .

While measurable data is the preferred method of assessment, anecdotal evidence can provide a window into the early impact of EFS on students and the school community.  Beginning to see the fruits of their hard work, The Lovett School recently shared their observations with The Cloud Institute.  These are particularly exciting as they support the growing empirical data documenting similar outcomes. 

 Teachers at Lovett reported the following changes since beginning their EFS journey: 

Student Impact:  

  • Increased Student engagement
  • More Authentic and Genuine Participation
  • Significant Growth Mindset
  • Improved Quality of Work
  • Increased Student interest in subject matter
  • Increased Student interest in sustainability
  • Increased curiosity
  • Improved Performance in knowledge acquisition and skills
  • Higher % of students meeting and exceeding teacher expectations (bell curve shifted dramatically)
  • Green Team attendance went from 4 students per meeting to meeting the goal of 20 students per meeting  

Teacher Impact: 

  • Teachers energized and motivated  by student enthusiasm and engagement
  • Teachers able to target, teach for, make explicit and assess for concrete EfS performance indicators which improved overall student performance

 We will continue to follow The Lovett School’s progress as they deepen their EFS work by developing a shared understanding of EFS and creating short and long term plans to systemically integrate and diffuse EFS throughout the school in a way that is documented, assessed, shared, integrated and improved over time.