Repost from: http://www.tntdrama.com/video/?oid=679812
Original Post Date: January 2014
Educator and Green Bronx Machine Founder, Stephen Ritz and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz discuss urban farming, sustainable education and opportunities for youth in the Bronx.
Learn more at http://greenbronxmachine.org
Repost from: http://www.wildculture.com/article/introducing-schools-future/1282
Original Post Date: September 28, 2013, by Whitney Smith
Education as we have come to experience it is a system structured around 19th century models and needs is heavily influenced by the industrial revolution. Many have argued that this system is no longer relevant to the demands and aspirations of modern-day society; others have made claims that it is even detrimental. A few organisations have set out to redefine the weary standardised view within the education system today. • One of those organisations, The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, works closely with individuals within school systems in the US and around the world. Jamie Cloud, lifelong global educator and founder of The Cloud Institute, wants schools to become ‘learning organisations’ which place children in the centre of a curriculum that encourages, inspires and empowers them to think about the wider systems of ecology, economy and ethics. • In these video talks Jamie outlines the origins and importance of the Institute’s work, and how it is now time to relent our old fashion notions of education: to allow the fertile, vibrant, and bright minds of tomorrow to experience a school system that will help to nurture and cultivate their potential. • If you have a story like this one please let us know. The domino effect of a few of these can make the difference that Jaimie Cloud is talking about. — Matthew Small, Education Editor.
Here Jaimie discusses using the Fish Game and understanding Mental Models as a way to start the conversation about education for sustainability.
Watch the entire video series here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZDpc7lPFHSKHV4hHzGjX-m5P5udq9eY4
Repost from: http://www.njfarmtoschool.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014-01NJF2S_News-03.html
Original Post Date: January 2014
What do you get when you put an inspiring technology into the hands of high school students? You get real life applications of 21st Century Skills which can be translated into job skills in industries related to agriculture and the sciences.
The Mobile Edible Wall Unit, better known as a "MEWU", which is pronounced "mee woo", is the invention of Green Living Technologies, a Rochester, New York-based company founded by New Jersey native, George Irwin. These walls are increasingly being used in schools for indoor school gardens, in school greenhouses and are broadening the biology and science related learning taking place in high schools that have them.
We first heard about MEWUs from teacher Steve Ritz, who was the keynote speaker at the Green Schools Alliance Conference in New York a few years back. Steve was using the walls in his classroom at the time at Discovery High School in the Bronx. His students were keenly interested in the hands-on applications the walls provided and were seeing first hand what the technological applications were for growing plants and food. Fast forward to 2014 and some of these same students continue to be hired to work on professional job sites, using the skills they gained while incorporating Green Living Technologies' educational programs into their day to day class instruction.
Here in New Jersey, the first school to purchase a MEWU was Monroe Township High School, where Nancy Mitrocsak, the food service director for the district, learned about the walls through the New Jersey Farm to School Network and went on a mission to find funding to bring them to the high school. With the support of District Supervisor of Sciences and Social Studies, Bonnie Burke-Casaletto, the school incorporated the walls into their expanded greenhouse program and teacher Christian Jessop and his students have been using them ever since. In a recent email exchange, the team updated us on their progress, "As a quick and exciting update-we're collaborating with Helen in our Food Service department to harvest a complete wall of basil! It looks and smells wonderful and Mr. Jessop has done much under tough weather conditions during our holiday break to keep our student-created growth projects thriving on-site. Things are green and flourishing."
Meanwhile, at South Hunterdon High School in Tiffany Morey's Floral Design Class, FFA (Future Farmers of America) student Mitchell Haug contributed the following report about the use of a MEWU with fellow students Charles McDaniel, Patrick Charles, Collin Leary, and Isaiah Jones.
"Ever since we unloaded the Green Wall that was loaned to us by New Jersey Farm To School on December 6th and set it up in our Ag Shop, it's been nothing but good times. From packing the boxes with soil to seeding, watering, and overcoming a few engineering challenges, the Wall has provided us with a challenging yet rewarding learning experience.
As the five guys in the floral design class, we weren't always as excited when it came to putting together centerpieces or assembling corsages and boutonnieres, but we did all share a passion for agriculture. When our advisor came to us with the offer that we could use class time to grow and take care of plants in an innovative way, we were thrilled. It wasn't long before we were putting together the wall and loading it up with soil.
Since then we have seen promising results. While there were some early issues with a water recycling system and soil erosion, these issues have since been resolved and we have begun to see germination and the beginnings of life. We currently have six varieties of lettuce planted that we plan to use in the school's cafeteria and culinary classes. We look forward to continuing with the wall and seeing what we can produce!"
To learn more about the Mobile Edible Wall Unit, click here. Green Living Technologies and the New Jersey Farm to School Network are collaborating on a program to bring more MEWUs into New Jersey schools. If your school or district is interested in learning more, please email us at info@njfarmtoschool.org and put MEWU in the subject line.
Repost from: http://www.sustainablecherryhill.org/the-black-run-preserve-a-suburban-pinelands-oasis
Original Post Date: September 26, 2013
Unbeknown to most area residents, just two miles from the The Promenade retail complex in Marlton lies over 1000 acres of undeveloped land called the Black Run Preserve. An isolated fragment of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, Black Run is an amazingly diverse and wonderful retreat from the hustle and bustle of fast-paced suburban life that lies on its doorstep. Though not contiguous with the rest of the Pinelands National Reserve, Evesham Township’s Black Run Preserve boasts a pristine ecosystem accessible to thousands of nearby residents.
Black Run gets its name from the stream which originates in the Preserve, fed by an underground aquifer of pristine-quality water. Its protected status means this lush, forested watershed is abundant with native species – including at least twenty rare and endangered plants. The absence of urban development has prevented pollution and invasive species from leaving their footprint here, providing an unspoilt natural ecosystem that feels as remote as anyplace along the East coast.
On a recent guided hike led by John Volpa – founder of Friends of the Black Run Preserve – we saw the impressive biodiversity native to the area. A lush, open grassland savanna is a verdant, exotic landscape reminiscent of the Florida Everglades. Nearby, wild blueberries can be eaten right off the bush. Black Run also boasts rare or endangered hawks, tree frogs, turtles, salamanders and the barred owl. Even in the mid-summer heat, the shady trails of soft, moist peat made for an easy, comfortable hike.
The public may use Black Run for hiking, cross-country skiing, biking and bird-watching, as there are several miles of trails which give access to various parts of the Preserve. The area also provides a unique, hands-on educational opportunity for local schools, who have conducted wildlife monitoring programs here. The Pinelands Preservation Alliance has also held the Black Run Summer Teacher Institute, where local educators and students learned about the ecology of the Preserve from Pine Barrens experts.
As a newly-emerging public open green space, Black Run also faces some challenges. There is an initiative to establish designated parking areas, as for now users must park alongside the road near one of the trailheads. There are also plans to provide bathrooms as well as to improve trails. Unfortunately, periodic clean-up is also needed for debris left behind by illegal dumping. However, as more people learn about the Preserve, there will be more incentive to increase its accessibility and usability.
You can help support Friends of the Black Run Preserve by becoming a member or volunteering for Preserve maintenance and improvement projects, and also by getting out and seeing this amazing natural treasure for yourself. An excellent five-minute promotional video provides an overview of the Preserve’s history and uniqueness. The public is invited to attend the Black Run Preserve Visioning Event on Wednesday, October 23 at 7:00pm at the Evans Elementary School in Evesham Township, where the public can give their inputto help develop a long-range Master Plan for the Preserve.
So take a step back from it all, and step into the magical world of the Black Run Preserve.
Author: Paul Hanley is a long-time Cherry Hill resident, New Jersey Learner, freelance writer and Environmental Science professor at the Community College of Philadelphia.
Blue School Feature on CNN Next List - March 2012
Champions for education for sustainability, creativity and a community of learning, The Blue School makes CNN's The Next List.
Making Education Brain Science - April 2012
LAST month, two kindergarten classes at the Blue School were hard at work doing what many kindergartners do: drawing. One group pursued a variation on the self-portrait. “That’s me thinking about my brain,” one 5-year-old-girl said of her picture. Down the hall, children with oil pastels in hand were illustrating their emotions, mapping where they started and where they ended. For one girl, sadness ended at home with a yummy drink and her teddy bear. MORE
Repost from: http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs.html
Original post date: April 2007
In this inspiring talk about recent developments in biomimicry, Janine Benyus provides heartening examples of ways in which nature is already influencing the products and systems we build.
A self-proclaimed nature nerd, Janine Benyus' concept of biomimicry has galvanized scientists, architects, designers and engineers into exploring new ways in which nature's successes can inspire humanity.
Repost from: http://www.jsedimensions.org/wordpress/content/how-our-teaching-changes-our-thinking-and-how-our-thinking-changes-the-world-a-conversation-with-jaimie-cloud_2011_05/
Original Post Date: May 8th, 2011
How our Teaching Changes our Thinking, and How our Thinking Changes the World: A Conversation with Jaimie Cloud
By Pramod Parajuli and Rosemary Logan
(Guest Editor’s Note: Jaimie Cloud, the Founder and President of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability, is one of the sustainability education thinkers and practitioners we chose to interview and profile in this issue of JSE. The conversation below took place during December 2010 and January 2011 between Jaimie, Pramod and Rosemary. After the draft version of this conversation was prepared, Jaimie filled in with additional contents and illustrations. A systems thinker and a thought leader in Education for Sustainability (EfS), Jaimie concludes this conversation with five-fold working principles. First, live by the natural laws. Second, read the feedback. Third, a healthy and sustainable future is possible, we just have to educate for it. Fourth, it all begins with a change in thinking. And, finally, we are all responsible. Jaimie also points out that only 29% of her EfS clients are attracted to this area due to their concern with the environment. This is eye opening and demands our attention to other dimensions of learning and seeking sustainability. Perhaps they are social, cultural, economic, political, ethical and moral. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Through the pages of JSE, you are also invited to expand and enrich what we have started.
Pramod Parajuli, Ph.D.)
1. Rosemary and Pramod:
Jaimie, you are recognized as one of the thought leaders of the Education for Sustainability (EfS) concept and movement. Will you tell us about your background? Who are you and what led you to found the Cloud Institute? What is the work that you do, with whom, and how did your organization come to be?
Jaimie: I was in one of the first experiments in global education from the 6th-12th grades. As a result, my work began at the age of 11. I grew up in Evanston, Illinois. Our teachers were influenced by Buckminster Fuller and other luminaries of the time. The gist of the experiment was to prepare us to thrive in the 21st Century, to become agents of change and inventors of the future we want. They provided us with learner-centered, constructivist methodologies that produced reflective, flexible and creative questioners, systems thinkers, lateral thinkers, media literate, self-regulated learners prepared to deal with rapid change, increasing complexity and interdependence, uncertainty, diversity, and global challenges, including the environment, peace and security, human rights and human development.
In middle school, I could not have predicted that I would be a founder of the field of Education for Sustainability. The term sustainability and sustainable development, as we understand it today, would not be coined until 1987, nineteen years later, and the field of Education for Sustainability would not be born until 1992 in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21—some 24 years later.
I grew up to become a Global Educator because that’s what I knew. In 1987, when the word sustainability appeared in a U.N. report, Our Common Future, I thought to myself, “That’s the name for the desired condition I want to educate for.” I had been tracking the state of the planet data since 1968—since I was 11. Now I had a word to describe what I saw: The situation was un-sustainable for humans and other species of plants and animals with whom we share the planet. Sustainable seemed like a better idea. Once I had the word, I had the concept. Once I had the concept, I knew I needed to educate for sustainability. My first questions were: What is sustainability? How do you measure it? What knowledge, skills and attitudes will be required to make the shift toward a sustainable future? How will we educate for the sustainable future we want? Am I already doing “it” as a global educator? How will it change what I’m doing now? Who is being attracted to this work? Are they smart, creative whole systems thinkers? Can they dance?
I founded the Sustainability Education Center in 1995 at The American Forum for Global Education. I felt like a laggard. It had been three years since Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 was written. In 2002, we officially spun off and became a 501-C3, and we were eventually re-branded by Heller Communications as The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education. As thought leaders involved in the development of the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS), we work to define the field of EfS through our framework, our EfS standards and performance indicators, enduring understandings, and the articulation of all the fields that inform EfS and the other frameworks and standards with which we are aligned. Our mission is to ensure the viability of sustainable communities by leveraging changes in K-12 school systems to prepare young people for the shift toward a sustainable future.
That is my story. Please also visit our blog at: /blog/category/resources
2. Rosemary: Though EfS is a relatively new term, the concept is not. Could you, for example, describe some of the precursors to EfS? What fields most strongly contribute to EfS? What, for example is the relationship between EFS and environmental or ecological education? Has environmental education played a role in the identity formation of EfS?
Jaimie: Precursors to EfS are global education, future studies, environmental education, wholistic education, diversity education, win/win conflict resolution, systems thinking and system dynamics education, to name a few. From my perspective, there is no one field that dominates EfS in the U.S. Each country is different in this regard. In the U.S., the field grew because a handful of people from a lot of different fields emerged simultaneously, independently and co-constructively. The momentum to grow the field is much greater internationally than it has been in the U.S. My colleagues globally are in Ministries of Education and Colleges of Education. Here, we are a few NGOs holding the space for the development of the field, and a very few colleges of education have taken the lead. Prescott College is one of the few.
The fields that strongly contribute to EfS are:
– Environmental Science and Education
– Science Education (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science…)
– Neuroscience
– Quantum Physics
– Sustainable Economics
– Global Education
– Ecological Design and Architecture Education
– Holistic Education
– Future Studies
– Arts and Humanities (Literature, History, Performing, Visual…)
– Organizational Learning and Change
– Environmental Ethics and Philosophy
– Ecological Psychology
– Positive Psychology
– Science of Happiness
– Conflict Resolution Education
– Systems Thinking and System Dynamics Education
– Game Theory
The field of neuroscience and the new research on the brain has been extremely useful in contributing to our ability to teach and learn about the paradigms, frames, or mental maps that drive people’s behavior. Thinking drives behavior, and behavior causes results. If you don’t like the results, the most upstream place to intervene is the thinking. That is why education of a certain kind (Orr) is key to making the shift toward sustainability and regeneration. Piaget explained the difference between assimilation and accommodation. So much of our current reality is a result of old ways of thinking and a gap between old mental models and current reality. Our job is to close the gap between mental models and the reality itself based on the evidence—based on the data. That is why Neuroscience is included on The Cloud Institute’s list of fields that contribute to EfS.
Understanding the relationship between EfS and environmental education is interesting because it is not as simple as you might think. From a conceptual point of view they are, in many ways, aligned and complimentary. Certainly, we are all interested in contributing to a sustainable future through education. What is in a name? This is where things get tricky. People call what they are doing whatever they want to call it—whatever there is funding for, or whatever they are used to calling it. The only way to know whether a program is EE or EfS is to study the attributes, the competencies, and the measureable outcomes.
If one is doing outdoor education and kids are connecting to nature and falling in love with nature by studying science and biology or ecology and ecosystems, then some people would call that environmental education, place-based education, Environment as an Integrating Context (EIC), environmental science, and/or outdoor education. EE has a robust set of standards that are well respected and do an excellent job of capturing what EE is and does. The Cloud Institute’s EfS Content Standards for Education for Sustainability include Responsible Local and Global Citizenship, Sustainable Economics, the Dynamics of Systems and Change, Healthy Commons, Multiple Perspectives, the Natural Laws and Ecological Principles, Inventing and Affecting the Future, Sense of Place, and Cultural Preservation and Transformation. Embedded in the content standards are twelve enduring understandings, five distinct thinking skill sets, six core attitudes and a host of best instructional practices. It is quite easy to see the similarities and differences between EE and EfS if you look carefully at the core content and learning outcomes we have each articulated. Everyone wants to be the umbrella and no one wants to be under it. So there is no sense in trying to determine which one is the “umbrella” field.
The purpose of Education for Sustainability, from our perspective, is to contribute to our individual and collective potential and that of the living systems upon which our lives depend. We have to learn how to be well in our places without undermining their ability to sustain us over time. Even better is to learn how to develop a regenerative relationship with the living systems upon which our lives depend. The foundations of our knowledge, skills, and habits of mind are cultivated in our schools. All the children and young people are legally required to go to school. That is why we work in schools.
3. Pramod: Has David Orr’s work, his 15 principles we need to know for example, informed your work?
Jaimie: Absolutely. We have embedded his thinking, and that list informs our standards and performance indicators. They fit most appropriately in our core content standard, Natural Laws and Ecological Principles. We have integrated David’s list as well as several other people’s, including Janine Benyus’s work in the principles of Biomimicry, and Sim Van der Ryn’s Principles of Ecological Design, along with several other authors who have tried to capture the essence of what we need to know about the “operating instructions” for the planet. All of David Orr’s books are required reading. He has had a huge influence on my work. He was also one of the first people to make the case for the role of education in contributing to sustainability. “The worth of education must now be measured against the standards of decency and human survival—the issues now looming so large before us in the 21st century. It is not education, but education of a certain kind, that will save us” (Orr). Too few have said this out loud or have published on the topic.
In most serious conversations about sustainability, I have not detected a shared understanding of the role of education, particularly K-12, in contributing to the shift toward a sustainable future. I have spoken to system dynamics modelers who assume that the time horizon for the return on an investment in Education for Sustainability is twenty years. When I hear that, I ask them, “Do you know any children?!” In my experience, it takes children and young people very little time (especially compared to adults) to turn what they’ve learned into action at the local level. On average, they are much more responsive, creative, and quicker to make change than we adults are. A seriously flawed assumption is at work there. To quote David Orr again, “This current situation we find ourselves in is not the work of ignorant people. On the contrary, it is the work of extremely well educated people—with advanced degrees.”
In David’s book, Earth in Mind, an entire chapter is devoted to the question, “What is education for?” In the service of what? We begin many conversations about EfS by asking the following questions that are classic to our field:
What kind of future do we want? What do we want to sustain? For whom, for how long, and what does education have to do with it? The very next question begged has to be, “What is education for?
4.Pramod: As of now, there are some 400 plus definitions of sustainability. Is there a particular definition of sustainability (or a mix) that you prefer? What are foundational concepts of sustainability that you and the Cloud Institute are comfortable with?
Jaimie: Yes…there is one that I love. The one I love is from Donella Meadows, “A sustainable society is one that is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough not to undermine either its physical or its social systems of support.” I also love and use Mathis Wackernagel’s definition a lot too. He says that sustainability means “a quality of life for all within the means of nature.” That’s a nice, short, and elegant one. We collect definitions of sustainability because people always ask us for one. Having said that, defining it is not actually going to be enough if you really want people to understand what the “it” is. I often get calls for advice from people who are learning how to educate for sustainability. They will often call after the fact when they feel that they have flopped. My first question is always, “Tell me you didn’t define education for sustainability in your opening line.” That was their first and last mistake. In my experience, defining sustainability is like defining education, or grace, or democracy or excellence. It is not the definition that captures the essence. It is the essence itself, and you just have to learn what it is and experience it to get it. Defining sustainability makes people’s eyes glaze over…it doesn’t help people get it. Yet, definitions are required. That is why we collect them. When people ask me for my “elevator speech,” I often recommend we take the stairs…
Sustainable solutions solve more than one problem at a time and minimize the creation of new problems (Wendell Berry). They contribute to the health of the very systems upon which they depend. Think about the word Sustain-ABLE- what makes something sustain-able? What makes human life on Earth sustain-able? Mutually beneficial relationships with all of the living systems upon which we depend. It’s real simple. It’s not sustain-GUARANTEED. Death and taxes are still the only two guarantees. I do not see evidence of a shared understanding among a critical mass of human beings on Earth about what it takes to sustain us as a species over time. We have created incredibly unfavorable conditions for humans to survive (let alone thrive), as well as for all the creatures with which we are interdependent to survive and thrive over time. Unintentionally, to be sure, but the feedback is the feedback.
5. Pramod: Among others, your work with the K-12 school teachers seems to be very prominent and rigorous. I call it the “one teacher at a time” approach to deepening sustainability. What is your experience in working with teachers? Do you have some success stories (or lack thereof) to share?
Jaimie: Actually, we work with “one system at a time.” One teacher at a time would take too long. The most whole system work we do is with school districts and their communities learning together for a sustainable future. We call those our Sites Learn initiatives. Examples include the nine sites around the country that are members of the Society for Organizational Learning (SoL) Education Partnership that Peter Senge and I created with a team of colleagues, and also our New Jersey Learns program which is funded by The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and is made up of a growing number of sites around New Jersey that participate in Sustainable Jersey. The next level on the continuum is our Districts Learn work. We work with individual districts and consortia of districts to Educate for Sustainability. The best example of that is our work with seventeen districts through the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES on a massive and multifaceted EfS initiative that is grounded in a core set of web-based exemplary units of study across all grade levels and disciplines (www.pnwboces.org/efs). Next, we work with individual schools (Schools Learn) from PS 208 in Harlem to the Denver Green School, and from Trevor Day School in NYC to Marin Country Day School in Corte Madera, California, to name a few. We need to have models and exemplars of what EfS looks like in a school, a district, and a community. If you go to our website you can see our approach and all our programs described there. We network all with whom we work so we can scale up the quantity and quality of the work as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Having said all of that, indeed a big part of the work we do involves professional development and coaching of teachers, leadership development and organizational learning consulting and planning with administrators, and work with educators to embed EfS into the core curriculum. Most K-12 schools are new to EfS. A small minority have been working on it since the early 1990s.
We usually begin a relationship with a school or district by providing an introduction to sustainability and education for sustainability in order to achieve three outcomes: 1) A shared understanding among the stakeholders of sustainability and EfS; 2) A personal rationale for educating for sustainability, and; 3) Participants will become inspired and hopeful about contributing to sustainability through education. If we are able to spend one day with educators—even just a day—as crazy as education is these days with testing, budget cuts, and graduation rates at an all time low, at the end of that day, the overwhelming response from teachers and administrators is, “Yes, this is important. I will do what I can to educate for sustainability. It’s our responsibility. Kids need and deserve this kind of education. Yes, I will do this.” Maybe they are an “early adopter” and they are ready to start “sustainablizing” (a short hand word we made up) their curriculum and instructional practices, or maybe they’re not quite ready for that yet, and they go home and pow-wow with their families to start being more conscious about their food buying habits or their waste production. Whatever they are ready for, I can say with all honesty that I have never met an educator that said, “Nah…I think I’ll keep educating for unsustainability. I don’t really like kids all that much anyway. I don’t care about their future.” Never once. All the educators that I have ever met without exception want what is good for kids. It is a deep and fundamental aspiration to contribute to the health and well-being of our children and of future generations. They remember why they became educators in the first place…and the creativity and the work begins. Sustainability and EfS are what’s better for the kids. This is goosebump material! The work of educating for sustainability is extremely exciting, energizing, and fun. It is a lot of work—especially in the beginning—and it is worth it. Our children are worth it.
Let me provide some examples of what it looks like to work with a teacher in a school to embed EfS into the curriculum:
Example ONE: This is a story from one of our partner schools, St. Paul’s School in New Orleans. They use the Cultural Literacy Curriculum developed by E.D. Hirsch. One of the teachers we work with was teaching a course on the human body and trying to figure out how to incorporate EfS into the learning. What people don’t always realize is that educating for sustainability is not always about sustainability. It is first and foremost about developing the knowledge and the ways of thinking that will help us to thrive over time—systems thinking is a good example. We want to develop as systems thinkers and to be able to transfer those habits of mind where and when appropriate. The human body is a great thing to study to understand systems and interdependence and the system’s archetypes. You can chart behavior over time…study interdependence by understanding how one part of the system affects the other parts… and all of this can be studied through the human body. As soon as the teacher saw the connection—saw that systems thinking could contribute to her students’ understanding of the human body (and contribute to sustaining human life on the planet…)—it was a win-win-win. She fell in love with the idea and off she went. It is a great unit of study.
Example TWO: An example of the results of EfS on students is the work of a science teacher at Marin County Day School in California, which is another one of our partner schools. This science teacher was interested in having her students study indigenous plants on the mountain upon which the school is built. They went to the local library to find books on the topic. No books on indigenous plants to the mountain were to be found. The fifth graders decided to write the book. So they did. They published and illustrated the book, and there are now several copies in the local library for others to use. Authentic curriculum and instruction are attributes of EfS. This is a beautiful example of EfS. It is an example of an authentic contribution by students in school to the sustainability of the place in which they live. The process was as relevant as the content of the book itself.
Example THREE: Another example of our work with schools includes the development of two full courses of study for the NYC Board of Education. A new Participation in Government course, Inventing the Future: Leadership and Participation for the 21st Century and an Entrepreneurship course, Business and Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century are learner-centered, standards-based, assessment-driven, and differentiated, all attributes of EfS. Each course was accompanied by a series of professional development programs for teachers and both were very successful at accomplishing the learning outcomes for teachers and students that they were designed to achieve.
Example FOUR: A Pre-K teacher of 3-4 year olds at the Denver Green School is a Reggio-trained teacher. She is a master of constructivist education. The EfS learning outcomes and content standards worried her, because she wanted her students to drive their own inquiry. Her curiosity and dedication to Education for Sustainability (the mission of the school) inspired her to teach for Healthy Commons. Her students have a play space that is a commons that the kids share. She decided that it would be useful if her students understood their rights to, and responsibilities for, that commons. She thought it would take the entire school year. She called me in October and said, “They’ve already got it! They are applying it and testing it and are transferring it outside of school…now what am I going to do?” The kids understood very quickly the difference between “mine” and “ours” and embraced the idea that the commons were that upon which we all depend and for which we are all responsible. It was a powerful reminder of how quickly children and young people learn and apply what they have learned.
The LAST Example (for now): Earlier I mentioned our work with seventeen districts in the Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES in NY. Hundreds of teachers are involved in innovating and writing exemplary curriculum units that other districts can subscribe to (www.pnwboces.org/efs). Some teachers in the 3rd -5th grade teacher cohort decided they wanted to teach about the Commons as well (the Commons is one of the favorite EfS Standards among teachers). They had chosen a book entitled, Our Commons, by Molly Bang. The teachers were so excited the librarian found a book on the Commons, and they wanted to use it in the unit. Halfway through the book, however, the author starts talking about the state of our local and global Commons…all bad news. I was concerned. We talked about the brain’s reaction to fear and how it produces the “away response” in people. We discussed what the unintended consequences would be of scaring ten-year-old children with the bad news of our current reality and how we could solicit engagement and creativity and help them to turn the problems into opportunities to create positive change. This is not the field of Education About Unsustainability. It is the field of Education for Sustainability. One of the teachers found the solution: “We can take the kids through the first half of the book, then challenge them to write their own endings to the book.” It was brilliant. The plan is to send the students’ new endings to the author so that she can read their ideas for creating healthy Commons.
6. Pramod: In my experience, K-12 public education and the role of teachers in its success (or failure) has always been one of the most contentious and difficult issues in the United States. Recently, there has been much praise as well as vilification of the public education system. Amidst the push for privatization of the school system, how does your work around Education for Sustainability fit in? How does your work empower public (or private) schools and teachers to succeed and thrive?
Jaimie: Many people have given up on public schools and yet we keep sending the majority of our children there. It is a bad scenario. We can either give up on them and create something else in their stead, or we can transform them into learning organizations that contribute to our children’s individual and collective potential and that of the living systems upon which our lives depend (we actually like a bit of both.) We cannot, I would argue, continue to send the majority of our nation’s children to places for thirteen years of their lives that we have abandoned financially, psychologically and emotionally. That’s just a disaster. That’s part of the problem. I’ll say that upfront.
Schooling has not, for the most part, evolved and changed with the evolving and changing world in which we live. It’s no secret. The old industrial form for education (public and independent schools can both be guilty of this) is part of the reason our schools are failing our children, our society, and our world. We cannot blame that on our teachers. Actually no blame can be assigned to any one of the players responsible for K-12 education in our communities. All systems are perfectly designed to get the results they get (Senge). Education in the U.S. is a systemic problem. Schools that are still modeled after the industrial revolution were not designed to change, were not designed to respond to, or to make change, and were not even designed to produce learning. They were designed to train people to work in factories. We know the history of schooling here in the United States. Schools are outdated if they are teaching the disciplines in silos, if class periods are forty-two minutes long or close to it (which no research on learning supports, by the way), and if teachers are still standing, delivering, and testing for recall. They will not be successful in the 21st Century and they will not prepare our children and young people to be successful. It is a design challenge to be sure. You can put that design challenge on top of challenges presented by the No Child Left Behind initiative that put many public school systems in a tailspin, which on the one hand was useful, and on the other hand destructive. Useful in that they asked teachers/districts to be accountable for student learning and student performance, destructive because of the unintended consequences of test preparation and a focus on tests. Test scores are an indicator of success; they are not the goal of education.
How does Education for Sustainability address the current reality of schooling in the U.S. today? We create learning organizations that are vision-oriented and feedback driven. We improve the relationships between schools and their communities, which generates emergent properties that benefit the health of both by accelerating the shift toward sustainability in those places. We inspire educators with aspirational goals, high quality teaching and learning, and low tolerance for mediocrity or failure. We stand for authentic teaching and learning and youth leadership. We use all the best instructional practices that improve teaching and learning, including backwards design in our curriculum planning with educators, curriculum documentation and mapping, and the use of data (feedback in the form of student work, evidence of growth over time and, yes, standardized test scores) to inform practices continuously improving through teacher development and critical conversations. We use learner-centered, standards-based, feedback driven, place and project-based, differentiated instruction in EfS (to name a few). We increase critical, creative, and systems thinking, which contributes to good test scores and college acceptances while contributing to civic engagement and the sustain-ability of human life on the planet. EfS is 21st Century education at its best.
7. Pramod: At the Cloud Institute, you value the importance of educating “for sustainability” rather than “about sustainability.” What is the difference you have found between these two? At Prescott College Ph.D. program in Sustainability Education, we also talk about education as sustainability. In our interpretation, if “education for sustainability” could be about enabling people to do no harm to the people or the planet, “education as sustainability” is to actually do good to people and the planet as much as possible. Any thoughts you have on the emerging vocabularies we use and conceptualizations? Have these words and concepts been helpful to you and your work?
Jaimie: It is clear that people educating for sustainability do not all have a shared vocabulary with shared meanings. What you call “education as sustainability—actually do good to people and the planet as much as possible,” we would call educating for sustainability by contributing to the regenerative capacity of all living systems. What you call “educating for sustainability—doing no harm to the people or the planet” we call “better than a poke in the eye” but we have higher aspirations for EfS than that. As I mentioned earlier, the Cloud Institute’s framework for Education for Sustainability is designed to contribute to our individual and collective potential and that of the living systems upon which our lives depend (also see questions 3 and 5 above). The ultimate goal is regeneration, of course. However, it’s no easier a word to sell than sustainability…which is why we don’t use it in marketing materials. Bill McDonough, who is famous for Cradle to Cradle Design, always talks about how wrong it is to aspire to doing less bad when doing more good is so much better. We agree with Bill on this and many other points. More good is what we aspire to.
When we educate about sustainability we treat sustainability as a topic. In my opinion, its use strictly as a topic is limiting and does not allow for what I believe is its highest and best use. To us sustainability and regeneration (whatever is considered the most aspirational goal) is the name for the desired condition we are educating for. I think the greatest value to us is that the concepts of sustainability and regeneration have their value as aspirational and measurable destinations.
The reason I don’t abandon the word sustainability is that you can measure it. There are measurable indicators of sustainability. We can measure whether we are using more resources faster than the replenishment rate. We can measure our Ecological Footprint. It is the Ecological Footprint that has made it possible for us to realize that we are using bio capacity on Earth faster than it is being replenished, and that is that the very definition of unsustainable. We are constantly looking at stocks and flows and looking at the health of the systems upon which our lives depend. We measure the quality of the water, the air, the state of our Commons, the health of our wetlands, fish stocks, top soil, public health, the gap between rich and poor, graduation rates, etc. These are all indicators of sustainability that we can measure. We use the indicators we have, and we are developing new and better measures all the time. How are our education systems doing ? We can measure it. If we put it all together in a place, we have sustainable community indicators. I think the fact that we can measure to what extent we are moving toward or away from sustainability (and even regeneration) is very useful.
8. Pramod: You have also been enthusiastic about considering schools as learning organizations. Your approach to EfS seems to be informed by a whole systems approach. I will throw one more metaphor for your consideration: schools as ecosystems. How successful have you been in getting across these ideas to school administrators, teachers, and parents?
Jaimie: In schools that “learn,” everyone is encouraged to keep thinking, innovating, collaborating, talking candidly, improving their capabilities, self-correcting, and making personal commitments to a shared future…
We have a description of our whole systems approach on our website at /our-approach
To me, the difference between using the term “schools as ecosystems” vs. “schools as learning organizations” is the perception of these two terms in the marketplace. Ecosystems conjures up the word environment and that suddenly limits the market. This is my experience. As soon as people think what we do is related to “the environment,” then either they are interested or not interested. Our research shows that consistently over time; 29% of our audiences are interested in education for sustainability because of the environment, and the other 71% want to educate for sustainability for a variety of other reasons.
On the other hand, it is sort of obvious that a school should be a learning organization—like a hospital should be a healthy hospital. It seems so obvious to people and doesn’t scare anyone away. It explains that we’re moving from industrial silos of training to a more integrated place for learning. Peter Senge coined the phrase “learning organization” in his book entitled, The Fifth Discipline. He then wrote a book called, Schools that Learn. We agree that the attributes of a learning organization are perfectly suited for schools that want to thrive in the 21st Century. That is why we use the term. Having said that, schools are of course ecosystems, and as biomimics, it makes perfect sense to think of them as such.
9. Rosemary and Pramod: Last month (October 2010) we attended the AASHE (American Association for Sustainability in Higher Education) conference in Denver, Colorado. There we saw that assessing sustainability education was a hot topic. Could you please describe some ways that the Cloud Institute assesses student learning of EfS? How are these correlated with federal or state standards? Why is assessment important for EfS? What are the challenges posed to assessing such a form of education? What areas are in greatest need of improvement?
Jaimie: We distinguish between evaluation, assessment, and grading. When we assess, we are gathering information about what students are learning, how they are learning, what it means to them, what they know, and what they can do, using multiple indicators and sources of evidence. Assessment is used to meet a variety of evaluation needs and can be done informally (observation) or formally (tangible evidence). Assessment allows teachers to ascertain, monitor and produce learning. To evaluate is to ascribe a value to the information we have gathered. Evaluation legitimizes teachers’ and students’ assessment data. To grade is to assign a symbol/number to the evaluation. Grading communicates evaluation information but produces no new learning.
We use pre-post instruments to measure growth over time, formative measures all along the way, and we use summative measures at the end of units and courses to measure overall retention and success. Assessments that produce learning are doing double-duty, and that’s a good thing. There is never going to be more time, so integrating your instruction and your assessments/evaluations makes sense. Nature only integrates. We use a variety of tools to measure student performance. We regularly use prompts that promote reflective thinking and are project-based, and service learning opportunities are excellent ways for students to express what they have learned while making authentic contributions to sustainability in their communities.
Why are assessment and evaluation important? If you want to know whether you have addressed an EfS standard or any standard, you have to produce evidence of it in student work. You have to assess for it. We want EfS to produce the kind of knowledge, thinking, and attitudes that will prepare children and young people to participate in, and to lead with us, the shift toward a sustainable future. With our EfS Standards and Performance Indicators, the proper instruments and explicit scoring criteria we can measure the acquisition and application of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that characterize EfS. We are working toward being able to demonstrate a correlation between a comprehensive approach to EfS in schools and communities and the improvement of sustainable community indicators in those places. What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed. We aim to see improvement over time. This is not just an intellectual exercise. EfS leads to a different way of thinking that drives different behavior that produces different results—sustainable results. We are responding to Einstein’s quote, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we used to create them.”EfS is our contribution to that different way of thinking.
Evidence of success would include evidence of the enduring understandings of EfS and the EfS Standards and Performance Indicators embedded with the thinking skills that characterize EfS. Here is an example of how we do it: One of the teachers we work with at the Trevor Day School in NYC teaches health and nutrition and the food pyramid in science. As a result of working together, she completely redesigned the unit to educate for EfS through food and nutrition. She chose the EfS Standards and Performance Indicators she wanted the unit to address. She designed learning opportunities and the assessments, and now we’re looking at student work to see how well she accomplished her objectives. Looking for evidence, communicating degrees of quality through rubrics, exemplars, and other forms of explicit criteria, helps students develop a frame of reference for excellence.
10. Rosemary: To put a more human face on assessment, could you share with us a personal story of a moment or a series of moments that communicated a student or group of students “got it?” “It” being the concept of sustainability. What did it look and feel like? What were you thinking at the time?
Jaimie: The first one that comes to mind is not one of our students but is a great story about a student from Bristol, Vermont, who eventually received a Brower Youth Award for the work she started through school. Her name is Jesse Ruth Corkins. I always tell her story because it is exemplary. Jessie Ruth was in the fourth grade when Vermont adopted State Standards for Sustainability Education. By the time she got to 9th grade, she was not new to the concept.
In 9th grade, a science fair challenge her teacher assigned her class was to convert their school building from oil to a clean, green renewal form of energy. Jessie Ruth and her partner, another 9th grader, did just that. They did the research, the science, the math, the business case, the politics, the economics, the planning, the writing, the fundraising, the purchasing, and the project oversight and completion. The school board gave them the money to convert their school building to wood chips. They saved the building $30,000 in the first year and $90,000 in the fourth year. Jessie Ruth is a poster child for sustainability education. Every EfS Standard is evident in her work. Jessie Ruth then moved on to organize a statewide coalition called the Vermont Sustainable Heating Initiative. Her coalition received 20 million dollars and 100,000 acres from the state legislature to grow switch grasses and other plant products so Vermont could grow its own energy supply in the form of pellets. They shifted the market for pellet stoves from one stove a week to 1,000 stoves per week. That was all before Jessie graduated high school.
You see every attribute for EfS in her thinking and actions and their integration. She represents the new paradigm in every way. She’s smart, can do the math, and collaborate. That’s not something you would be able to capture in a multiple choice test, and it is not something you can produce in one course or one year. You get that over time. EfS was normal for her from 4th through 12th grade. It was embedded in her consciousness. Now she’s attending the University of Vermont.
Other examples include the 3rd grade students in Byram Hills, NY, who designed and implemented the recycling program in their school and community; the students in Portland, Oregon who saved the Swifts’ “migration rest stop” by instituting an upgrade to their school’s source of energy; the 4th grade students in Salt Lake City who responded to an RFP from the city and who won 4 ½ acres to build a nature trail and playground and park; and the secondary students at the Lawrenceville School in Lawrence, NJ, who serve as the “research arm” of the Sustainable Lawrence initiative. These are all examples of authentic assessments that produce learning and make authentic contributions to community sustainability.
11. Rosemary: What do you think are the greatest areas within EfS in need of further research? If you were to put the call out for the next generation of sustainability educators and researchers, what would you tell them?
Jaimie: Certainly assessment and evaluation are big areas that require research. Developing longitudinal studies to track progress over time is paramount. We want to provide evidence of the correlation between EfS and the improvement of sustainable community indicators in a place. Can we compare the data to others who are not doing EfS? We need baseline data and then we will need to set up systems to track progress over time. We need good researchers to do all of it.
We need help in designing robust assessments to measure student learning in all of the EfS Standards and Indicators. We need great rubrics and a great variety of methods to communicate performance criteria. We need to communicate to people what it looks like to meet an EfS standard. We need to determine what the best measures are. We need to know what the best ways are to assess the degrees of quality of EfS attributes. We need to know what it takes to prepare an educator to educate for sustainability, an administrator to administrate for it, etc. We need to know what kinds of capacity building and professional development works best in different contexts, and we need to have a great deal of student work that produces evidence of EfS attributes. I will give you a quick example: One of our teachers designed an elegant unit of study and was interested in addressing two performance indicators of the Multiple Perspectives Standard of EfS. She designed her unit to produce evidence in her students of respect for other’s points of view and empathy. When the teacher showed me her rubric for the unit, there was nothing about empathy and point of view articulated. She did all that work to design and teach for those attributes but had forgotten to communicate to her students that those two EfS Performance Indicators were important. She had used an existing rubric that did a great job of assessing for the characteristics of a good essay. To analyze her students’ work, she put the work in three piles: Meets Expectations, Exceeds Expectations and Below Expectations. Though the student work in the first two categories demonstrated good to excellent writing skills, none of them demonstrated empathy. The writing was indeed poor in the Below Expectations pile, but the work of two students in that pile demonstrated empathy, and they didn’t get any recognition for that. It was a simple issue to resolve. We added respect for other’s points of view and empathy to the rubric, and the teacher decided to pay closer attention to the congruence between what she was designing for, what she was assessing for, and what she was communicating to kids was important.
How can we best help teachers to do this work? What resources do they need? What professional development opportunities do they need to relatively quickly adjust teaching and assessment practices that will improve student learning and contribute to a sustainable future? We would love to get some help from great and smart researchers out there. We’d be happy to participate in pilots and create focus groups and study teams. We can provide the research subjects, but we have received very little to no funding to do this kind of thing. It has been very difficult so far for us to get money to design and implement robust research and assessment agendas. There are a few studies out there that are fabulous and very useful. At Antioch, David Sobel has evidence of the great impact of place-based education (an attribute of EfS) on civic engagement and test scores. Employing the Environment as an Integrative Context for Learning: Closing Achievement Gap (Lieberman et al., 2002) is another good study that is useful. We need more data to prove EfS contributes to critical thinking or other benchmarks people want, like meeting state standards. We need more evidence that EfS contributes to student performance and success in life.
As Pramod himself is aware, food and learning gardens-based initiatives in Portland, Oregon, and other areas need a total assessment.
12. Pramod: Pedagogy based on a sense of place seems to be one of the areas of your focus in EFS. How do the notions of “local,” “bioregional,” “national,” and “global,” figure in your sense of place? How do you suggest a sustainable citizen would navigate between these scales and responsibilities?
Jaimie:
All of those are nested systems. A local system is nested in its bioregion, is nested in the national and political systems…etc. Nested systems are all interdependent on one another. From a systems perspectives all problems are endogenous. They arise from within the system. If we solve our problems locally, we contribute to solving them globally. You can use the cliché both ways—think globally, act locally…and vice versa. We can’t have global sustainability without local sustainability. Linking all the locals to one another over time produces global networks of communication, shared understandings, and best practices. We are all in this together. Prescinding is very useful in this regard. To prescind is to look with a “zoom lens” at our local systems while, at same time, using a “wide angle lens” to keep our eyes on the big picture. We move from parts to whole and whole to parts. That’s what you’re doing all the time….negotiating and reconciling relationships between the two.
13. Pramod: What have you found about the new generation of learners in K-12 setting? What are their characteristics? What new technologies are they using to learn and live in the world? How should EfS adapt to those new modalities of teaching and learning such as identified in the Curriculum-21 volume?
Jaimie: The learners that I come into contact with run the gamut. In general, our younger students are hungry to learn and passionate about sustainability and making a difference. As they get older, I see three groups emerging: Some are becoming more cynical, less reflective, feeling disconnected, and have little hope for the future. Others are in denial completely—thinking that their lives will be fine, even though they see that the world is in trouble (as if, somehow, they had immunity from the results of that trouble). The third group—a growing group, thank goodness—is being educated for sustainability in one form or another, and they are on fire to learn and to contribute to a healthy and sustainable future.
In terms of young people’s uses of technology, I think the rapid change is really challenging for adults and not that big a deal for young people if they are educated to adapt and to thrive in that context. The speed of technological change is a good example. It is easy for kids to navigate because they’re used to it, and things are always changing in their lives. There is great plasticity in the brain until the age of twelve or thirteen. There is still plasticity after that, but it is never as easy to adapt after thirteen as it is before thirteen. Once the patterns and habits kick in, we have to work hard to keep our minds open and flexible. The role of teachers is more and more to become “guides on the side” instead of “sages on the stage.” It is a great time for constructivist education. Students don’t need teachers to deliver information anymore. Technology can provide it faster and in differentiated ways for different learners (see the School of One, NYC). We hold students back if we are standing there delivering content.
At the same time, students, and all of us, need tremendous help to not overuse technology and to navigate the use of the Internet in gathering data and doing research. Alan November, in the volume Curriculum 21 (HH Jacobs, ASCD, 2010, visit: http://www.ascd.org/Publications/Authors/Heidi-Hayes-Jacobs.aspx), tells a story in his article called, Teaching Zack to Think, about a student who was studying the Holocaust. He somehow learned through his online research that the Holocaust was really a health spa. It turns out that all the websites he used lead back to one engineering professor at a prominent university who hated Jewish people and had set up eight different websites all linked to each other, all delivering consistently bogus information. They all had northwestern.edu at the end and so the student thought they were legitimate. He could not distinguish the lies from the truth. The article then goes on to teach people how to unpack a URL to determine legitimacy. I see students all the time doing research on the Internet by Googling and picking the top three things that come up as their sources. These are some of the benefits and challenges to the use of technology in our classrooms.
I think it is common knowledge these days (though it is not all reflected on the standardized tests) that our job as educators more and more is to teach students how to do things like analyze information, distinguish opinions from facts, back up their statements with evidence, do research, be media literate, and live in community—sustainably, of course.
14. Rosemary: I had the immense pleasure of attending both a workshop you presented on assessment at Bioneers as well as the Advanced Summer Design Studio this summer (2010). Both experiences were among the best trainings I’ve been to on EfS. Could you please describe the variety of resources that the Cloud Institute offers to educators and schools (including opportunities for collaboration via the Cloud Commons)? Where might someone looking to get into EfS find you (professional conferences you present at etc.)?
Jaimie: The Summer Design Studio is a great way to get started or to continue deepening your work in EfS. Each summer teachers and administrators come from all over to design something through the lens of sustainability (units of study, curriculum maps, professional development programs, organizational change strategies, assessments…). They spend five days with us plus the one day introduction if they haven’t had it yet. They have time (our only currency) to work. It is a real treat. There is work time scheduled with optional mini-sessions and coaching when they need it. They have time and space and colleagues, resources, and the Internet. People meet each other and form affinity groups. Everything we’re doing is encouraging learning communities so no one feels alone out there.
In our consulting work throughout the school year, we are doing more and more long-term work with schools for 3-5 years—a whole school approach.
We also do individual professional development programs and we’re launching the upgrade of our “Cloud Commons,” a digital resource library with e-portfolio capability for educators to document, share, and receive feedback on their work. Cloud Commons is a great resource people can subscribe to. They can share units and draw on units and plans that other people have designed so that we can all learn from one another and build a repertoire of exemplary EfS materials. This next year will be very exciting.
If you are an individual or small group and district not ready to make a commitment, you can start with a One Day Intro to Sustainability and Education for Sustainability in our shop in NYC or in your own location. You can buy our EfS Curriculum Design Studio in a Box or you can purchase some of our exemplary units and courses to get you started.
For folks who are ready to do the deeper dive and make the commitment to educating for sustainability, we have four major programs – E-learn (online), Districts Learn, Sites learn and Youth Learn. They are all beautifully described on our website at /model-programs/
15. Rosemary: While at the Cloud Summer Institute, several of us joked that we wished there was more than one Jaimie—we want your expertise and energy not just in New York City but also across the country and world. If you could imagine for one moment that financial resources for the Cloud Institute were unlimited and the demand for EfS was skyrocketing, how might you envision the role and work of The Cloud Institute?
Jaimie: Thanks Rosemary, I appreciate that. What we need are models to be able to point to and sites around the country that are doing this work seriously, robustly, and comprehensively. We also need to do more product and service development. We need more exemplars and more tools/webinars/videos to make it really easy for people to do this work. We need to do site development and to build capacity in schools and in communities to do this work. We would develop partnerships with Schools of Education, and we would work with sites that are ready to do this work that just need the money to do it seriously. They would be willing to participate in the action research and the externally driven research and evaluation agendas. I know that there are a great many sites that are ready. We just need the significant financial investment to be made.
16. Pramod and Rosemary: Any closing thoughts or comments you would like to share with the readers of the Journal of Sustainability Education?
Jaimie:
Here are my five one-liners, elevator speech and sound bites:
Jaimie P. Cloud is the founder and president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education in New York City. The Cloud Institute is dedicated to the vital role of education in creating awareness, fostering commitment, and guiding actions toward a healthy, secure and sustainable future. Ms. Cloud has written several book chapters and articles, teaches extensively, and writes and facilitates the collaborative development of numerous instructional units and programs that are designed to teach across disciplines through the lens of sustainability. In addition she serves as an advisor, board or committee member to several organizations with related goals and interests.
Repost from: http://m.newjerseyhills.com/madison_eagle/news/teacher-from-madison-helps-build-schools-in-guatemala/article_979d67d0-ff8b-11e2-baf4-001a4bcf887a.html?mode=jqm
Original Post Date: August 7, 2013
Nancy Kuster of Beech Avenue doesn’t just talk the talk. A second-grade teacher at the Sundance School in North Plainfield, she recently had the opportunity to walk the walk during her second trip to Guatemala to help build schools for the impoverished people of the small Central American nation. “I believe schools play a major role in shaping environmental/global consciousness and behavior that leads to long-term impacts affecting the future of our planet,” she said.
In late March the Madison resident, along with a dozen other educators from around the U.S., took part in the ecological construction of the infrastructure of a “bottle school” in rural Chimaltenango insulating the building’s walls by recycling plastic bottles that otherwise would have been discarded as garbage.
The project was part of the “Great American Teach-Off Part 2” in partnership with the nonprofit organization “Hug It Forward,” which is dedicated to both the education of children and a better life for them and their families, and a “sustainable” world in which “trash” is not thoughtlessly “thrown away” into the environment.
Bottle Schools
The concept of a “bottle school” was begun by a Peace Corps volunteer who was dismayed by the mountains of plastic trash she saw in Guatemala coupled with the number of schools that had no walls, Kuster explained.
“Bottle schools” are not only ecologically-friendly, but they help get the population “to commit to the process,” by stuffing every plastic bottle they see with 100 pieces of inorganic trash, Kuster said. Those bottles, called “eco-bricks,” are then covered with cement and used as insulation in school walls that are supported by professionally built, structurally sound frames, she stressed. Because of the civil war waged between the Guatemalan government and leftist rebels from 1960 to 1996, most children didn’t go beyond the sixth grade in school, Kuster noted. “Hug It Forward” is now working on building its 30th school, she said.
On Kuster’s first trip, in the spring of 2012, she traveled to Guatemala with 15 other educators from a charter school in Chicago, Ill. This year, the project drew 25 educators from across the country. “It was a much more eclectic group,” she said, adding that the volunteers bring nothing with them except their labor. This year, Kuster mainly mixed and threw cement, while last year she cleared dirt, she said. Kuster called the project a great experience, even though the volunteers were warned not to eat anything unless the food was provided by the “Hug It Forward” organization.
Make A Difference
“I learned about living through a civil war and the immigration experience,” she said, pointing out that after earning some money in the U.S., immigrants return home to Guatemala. This is not a one-shot deal – you become connected and spend time with the kids, who are unbelievably un-jaded,” Kuster said.
During her work in Guatemala, Kuster blogged with her students back in North Plainfield. “Empowering students in the U.S. to make a difference in the lives of students in a Third World country is one step toward peace education,” she said. “It has truly been an amazing experience to partner with ‘Hug It Forward’ and see the empathy and generosity of my students, who fund-raised for the project this year through many events including foregoing birthday money and donating it the project.
“They see how kids in other areas live and still are happy without lots of stuff. “It taught my kids to be global citizens,” she said. Kuster, who paid her own way to Guatemala, hopes to make another trip next year. “It’s a beautiful country, and I wasn’t nervous at all about being there,” she said. “I have been very committed to this project, as it ties into education and awareness by empowering communities in Guatemala through construction of schools,” Kuster said.
Nancy Kuster is a second-grade teacher and recent graduate of the New Jersey Learns Program. After studying macro-invertebrates the second grade class went to Green Brook to determine the water quality - which turned out to be good based on the samples found living in it. They also made "up cycled" planters out of water bottles to grow milkweed from seed to attract Monarch butterflies. This is EfS in action.
Repost from: http://www.today.com/video/today/51619345#51619345
Original Post Date: April 22, 2013
Stephen Ritz, a teacher in New York City public schools and the founder of Green Bronx Machine, shows how vertical “living wall” gardens can teach kids about protecting the environment and bring a little green to concrete jungles.
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This five-seater car runs on compressed air, has zero pollution, very low running costs and will cost about $15,000. This is a great example of the kind of creative thinking that addresses a challenge to our sustainability.
INTRO BY JAIMIE CLOUD
The back story to the following wonderful article is worth sharing. 
I received a call one day out of the blue from a Dr. Emma from Kenya. Dr. Emma told me that she was involved in developing an upcoming Forum for Kenyan leaders and that she had asked Peter Senge to be the keynote speaker at the forum. She went on to say that he had agreed to do it on one condition: “That the leaders play the Cloud Institute’s Fish Game first.” He went on to say that she could reach out to me for details, so she did. She downloaded the Fish Game from our bookstore and we set a time for a SKYPE coaching session to prepare her to facilitate it at the Forum. The SKYPE time came and went—no Dr. Emma. The next day, I received an email from her explaining that the Internet had gone down in the village and that she was hoping to re-schedule our conversation. No problem. We re-scheduled for the next day, and two hours before our scheduled conversation, Dr. Emma called me on the phone: “Jaimie?” she said, “I came to Nairobi to a hotel so that I could SKYPE with you today, and the electricity has just gone out. I am sitting in my hotel room with a cell phone, a candle and a print out of the Fish Game Facilitator’s guide. Can we talk now?” Of course we did—then and a few more times after that. As we unpacked the mental models of unsustainability and those that are more likely to help us to shape the future we want, Dr. Emma kept saying over and over, “Jaimie: Have you been to Kenya? Do you know these folks? Are you sure you don’t know them?” I explained that though I have in fact been to Kenya once, I did not know those individuals personally and that the mental models of un-sustainability seem to be universal and even archetypal. Tragic and true. In exchange for my time, I asked Dr. Emma to write about her experience facilitating the Fish Game to tribal leaders in Kenya. This is what she wrote:
Leadership and Kenyan Renaissance, 2012
Background
Within the last decade, an unprecedented wave of development has swept through Africa. New faces appear across the landscape such as the Chinese, now common on some African City streets. Highways are being built to connect African countries together. One country leading in this forward development is Kenya. And, while commending this development, one Kenyan scholar believes that for this to work and still have an impact, Kenyan leadership will have to shift in a new direction. More so, because a wave of resource exploration is revealing that Kenya has lots of natural resources including oil, coal, geothermal, natural gas and wind power. For these resources to benefit the public, a new type of leadership will be critical.
“Kenya is undergoing the most aggressive devolution that the world has ever witnessed” (World Bank Report, Dec. 2011). The goal is to curb negative systemic social, economic, political and development issues. A recently amended Constitution (CK2010) seeks to reshape the way citizens relate with the government, and places a strong emphasis on principles of participation, transparency, and accountability. The new constitution avails ordinary Kenyans an opportunity to take the lead in the development of their counties, innovatively modeling a development that works for them. Leadership styles and models for the 21st Century will be critical and must be learned. This period of change comes at a time when Kenya is witnessing new recourse identification to include: oil, natural gas, wind power, geothermal power, coal, and biofuels on a limited scale. The Cloud Institute’s Fish Game simulation was played to create awareness about resources and leadership, deemed critical in the development of Kenya.
Dr. Theuri adds that Kenyan success will depend on how well leaders harness the county synergy to reap the benefits that are independently un-obtainable, and, which will be greater than the sum of all 47 Kenyan counties. Recognizing the need to identify available resources, and utilizing them without depleting will be key to local and national development. To achieve this, a “Shared servant leadership is critical, and it must be the new song”, says Dr. Theuri.
The Issue
But how does this rebirth take place, “Dr. Theuri asks”, when Kenyans and the international community are grappling with uncertainty and a lack of trust with the Kenyan leadership? A time when Kenyans are wondering whether the great hopes they have on the new constitution will come to fruition, given that it will be implemented by the same leadership that brought Kenya down. A leadership that is likely to protect its own interests, and has the power to do just that. What will support the hopes among Kenyans, that the strong roots of corruption, eroded ethos, joblessness, and hopelessness will no longer prevail, in a country where over 65% of the population is youth aged under 35years?
The Fish Game was used against this background, to communicate the role of servant leadership in resource mobilization and sustainability; to demonstrate the power of unselfish leadership in economic development, and the power of collaboration and re-union between the government and the people of Kenya in resource mobilization, utilization and sustainability.
The Forum
Dr. Theuri conducted the four-day IMPACT2030: Transformational Leadership Forum in Kenya 2012, with participants hailing from government and private corporations.
Participants were from government and corporate managers, CEOs and an ex-ambassador. Their role at the forum was to endure 12 hours a day, exploring the uniqueness of their counties and their country. Also, engaging in thought-provoking hands-on experiences, addressing global roots of poverty and how this is sustained.
Further, looking at servant-like, and the 21st Century leadership; mental models and change. An introduction to systems thinking and its application in a Kenyan context was an eye opener into leadership greed, corruption, root causes and impact on resources. Local invited speakers spiced the Forum. Forum participants became residents of the 48th Kenyan County by default, a simulated County that exposed them to the reality of living on 2$ a day, and as government planners, coming up with a plan how the 48th County in Kenya should develop and grow.
The Game
Groups of four teams (1, 2, 3, and 4) played the game. Teams 1, 3, and 4 depleted the fish in their first round. But, when playing Game # 3, they were able to play several rounds without depleting the fish pond. Team #2 did not deplete the fish even in the first round. Apparently, they had an individual who insisted that they could not take as much as they all wanted. She was the only female in the whole training crew. She stood her ground and sort of dictated that the group ration fishing from the word go, because without the rations, some people would get no fish. The group negotiated, disagreed, and finally settled to one fish per person. For this team, they were able to keep going for 5 rounds before the instructor stopped them, they could have gone on and on for a long time.
Lessons Learned
During the debriefing, the teams used Kenya as the Fish Pond to analyze the case of Kenyan resources and poverty. They were in agreement that in Kenya, people believe that:
Natural resources belong to the government so, no one takes care of them, and as a result, they are easily depleted by the citizens.
That the leaders have misused natural resources because they are the government property, and so, they own the (resources).
After the game, participants had two critical observations:
That if people were educated about the impact of resources on their lives, and the ownership they democratically possess, then, the citizens would protect those resources for their children, and future generations.
That development of Kenya lies on the hands of the Kenyan people.
The Fish Game served as a self-reflective process on the participant’s leadership, their management styles, and use of public resources. After the program, participants had the following to say: verbatim):
- “I learned that to be a leader, one must first become a human being.
- Learned that leadership is about taking a stand no matter how unpopular you become.
- If resources are used wisely, our nation will prosper.
- I learned how to optimize the gift of leadership.
- The vision that is important is that which people share.
- A great leader provides an opportunity for people to shape their future.
- That there is a lot of potential in our counties and Country.
- Strategies to transform a county, and even communities.
- Major learning was that our country is endowed with a lot of wealth and potential.
- The resources and potential in Kenya are enormous.
- If resources are used well, then the country will prosper.
- There is need to have a clear understanding of our National Goals and work together to achieve them.
- General overview of leadership at community level.
- Problems in agriculture sector in Kenya and how it can be advised through empowerment of community.
- Communication between leadership and the grassroots.
- How to contribute to community development”.
Conclusion
In summary, the learning from the Fish Game was powerful. It was amazing that a simple game of Fish could provide such deep penetration, quest, and awakening for knowledge and skills building in areas that matter the most in life. It was clear that simplified communication of knowledge has the ability to provide a deeper meaning of the subject. Participants did grasp the power of servant and team oriented leadership. They gained a better understanding about resource utilization. They realized that Kenya has lots of resources which, if properly utilized are enough for all, and for future generation. There was a deep self-reflection, and change of mind sets, on leadership and resource utilization. Participants left the forum fired up to go make change in their leadership positions.
The Leadership Forum would not have been such a success without the great contribution of renowned trainers and speakers such as Dr. Peter Senge, who joined the Forum participants in Kenya via video conference from USA. Dr. Peter Methabula from South Africa; Dr. Jonathan Ciano, the CEO Uchumi Kenya; Peter Kenneth, the Assistant Minister in the Ministry of National Planning and Development; and Dr. Emma Theuri, the convener.
Special thanks go to Jaimie P. Cloud, President of The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education. Jaimie is commended for her flexibility and zeal in getting the work done. Being in the US at the time, she spent over three hours on a Phone Training about the Fish Game with Dr. Theuri who was in Kenya at the time. (The only communication channel they had, after several power outage experiences in their earlier attempts to accomplish the task via Skype). Without this effort, the Fish Game exercise would not have taken place.
Dr. Emma Theuri is the Founder, Institute for Promotion of Sustainable Community Development (IPSCoD), an organization with a focus on transformational leadership as a tool for change and empowerment.
References:
The Fish Game. Facilitator’s Guide. Developed and published by The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, 2012 Edition.
Laurie P. & Diebel. A. Bridging the Divide between the Public and Government. A Review of Research KF. Connections, Kettering Foundation’s Washington, D.C. Summer, 2006.
Kenya Constitution 2010.
Kenya, Vision2030.
MAY 2013 UPDATE: In March we shared information about one high school student in Hawaii named Trevor Tanaka who had proposed to the Hawaii State Legislature a resolution to require that the Hawaiian Department of Education formally embed Education for Sustainability into the core curriculum. Resolution HCR178 HD1 SD1 was adopted by the legislature on April 24th!!!! We congratulate Trevor, the educators who inspired him, and the legislature who not only listened to him, but who agreed with him.
We are humbled by Trevor’s grace and tenacity, and that of all the young people who are accelerating the shift toward sustainability by showing up, standing up, and taking the lead.
The resolution’s final language can be seen here
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2013/bills/HCR178_SD1_.htm
HCR178’s measure history and status can be seen here
http://capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HCR&billnumber=178&year=2013
Repost from: http://www.hawaii247.com/2012/09/12/student-shares-why-sustainability-is-important
Original Post Date: September 12, 2012
By Trevor Tanaka | Special to Hawaii 24/7
It was September 2011. The state was abuzz over the upcoming APEC meeting in Honolulu in November where President Obama and 20 other heads of state would be gathering. All eyes would be on Hawaii.
It was the first time, since 1993, that the U.S. would be hosting APEC’s annual meeting. In an effort “to engage our local youth and provide them with a once in a lifetime opportunity to be a part of APEC,” the host committee sponsored an essay contest open to high school students.
Five winners would have the amazing opportunity to attend this premier economic forum in the Asia-Pacific Region.
While it sounded like an easy enough topic, I quickly realized that I really did not know enough about sustainability to write my essay. So that’s when my process of learning about sustainability started in earnest.
It also made me really think. Why would someone like me — a junior in high school, and a good student who had taken years of different science classes –- why was I having such a difficult time with this topic? Thus began my journey to learn about sustainability and the importance it plays in our lives today, tomorrow, and in the future of our world.
We all know that sustainability and clean energy are essential to Hawaii due to our location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Our current dependence on imports threatens our resources and our way of life. We also know that Hawaii is rich in renewable energy sources that have the potential to decrease our dependence on imports, especially imported oil.
I really believe that our ability to educate ourselves about finding the right balance of growing our economy, keeping our land healthy, and preserving our natural resources and culture is essential to our survival. In fact, our state is in a unique position to become a leader in our nation and possibly the world.
Through my research, I found out that some private schools in Hawaii offer courses/programs in some form of sustainable education (green technology, renewable energy, etc.). HPA (Hawaii Preparatory Academy) has its world-famous LEED-platinum certified Energy Lab.
Other schools incorporate sustainable education into existing courses, such as Environmental Science. Wouldn’t it be great if all students were given the equal opportunity to learn about the importance of sustainability and the role it plays in our lives today and will play in the future?
I decided to put my thoughts into action. I crafted Resolution No. 25 that requires all public schools in Hawaii to incorporate sustainability and clean energy units and related technologies as part of the Science curriculum.
In December 2011, I traveled to Honolulu to attend the 2011 Secondary Student Conference (SSC) held at the Hawaii State Capitol. The purpose of the SSC is to “provide secondary school students the opportunity to identify, discuss and arrive at recommended solutions to major youth problems, with emphasis on school problems that require the attention and joint action by the students, the Department of Education and the Hawaii State Legislature.”
At the Conference I presented the Resolution No. 25 to the 200 student delegates. I was very excited when 85 percent voted to support it!
This spring, I was nominated by Nancy Redfeather from The Kohala Center to serve as a youth delegate from the Big Island to the Stone Soup Leadership Institute’s 8th Annual Youth Leadership Summit for Sustainable Development on Martha’s Vineyard.
Five of us from the Big Island traveled together, representing the Sustainable Hawaii Youth Leadership Initiative (SHYLI).
Each SHYLI youth delegate created a power-point presentation on one aspect of sustainability: Agriculture, architecture, cultures, energy and environment. Mine was on Sustainable Education.
I expanded my research to learn about how other states and countries are involved with sustainable education. The New Jersey Sustainable Schools Network is promoting education for a sustainable future in all public schools in Jew Jersey.
The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development: 2005-2014 is a global initiative with the goal of reorienting education worldwide.
China has designated 1,000 public schools for Education for Sustainable Development. Japan has included Education for Sustainable Development into its national curriculum guidelines.
Every university in Sweden is required by law to teach sustainable development. I felt empowered knowing this. Just think Hawaii could become one of the leaders of sustainable education!
At the Summit, I met young people from islands around the world who are championing green initiatives in their communities. I also learned how people throughout history have struggled to keep their dreams alive.
I was inspired by youth leader Amira Madisen from the Wampanoag Tribe Gayhead-Aquinnah, who shared how they lost their language and are now working hard to reclaim it.
I also had the opportunity to share my vision for Sustainable Education in all Hawaii public schools on a national radio program – “Keeping it Moving with Marsha Reeves-Jews.” The entire Summit experience gave me hope and inspired me to take the next steps to pass the Resolution No. 25.
We are now gathering letters of support – from our elected officials to business and community leaders as well as young people and educators. I believe we all need to be concerned about sustainability.
My hope is we will build enough support to pass Resolution No. 25. Here are some highlights:
BE IT RESOLVED, that the Science curriculum for all public high schools in Hawaii be supplemented by the integration of sustainability/clean energy units that include the development of Hawaii’s energy, environmental, ocean, recyclable and technological resources; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the integration of sustainability/clean energy units in the Science curriculum will help educate students about the role that sustainability/clean energy plays in balancing the needs of Hawaii’s growing economy with protecting its environment and resources in a socially responsible way.
I want to see that all high school students throughout the State of Hawaii have the opportunity to take classes in or be exposed to some form of sustainable education as part of their science curriculum.
This will allow Hawaii’s youth to have a better understanding about sustainability and the connection it has with our way of life, especially here in Hawaii.
It is essential that everyone understand that keeping our environment healthy, keeping our economy healthy, and keeping our people healthy are all interrelated and will ultimately allow our culture, traditions, way of life, and unique island home to not just survive but thrive for generations to come.
Trevor Tanaka,
Senior, Konaweana High School
Submitted by: Jean Kosky, Second Grade Teacher at Trevor Day School
Some of the greatest challenges, and greatest joys, of teaching second grade at Trevor Day School can be realized during the special studies my colleagues and I embark on in January. During these 4-6 week units each second grade class plunges into a study that is theirs alone. Teachers and students work together to become experts in one subject that they then translate into a play or presentation that is used as a teaching/learning vehicle for the rest of the Trevor community. These studies are often quite different on the surface. This year’s studies included; the Wolf Study, a discovery of the reality vs. literary images of wolves with a large dose of environmental science thrown in; the Peace Study, an exploration of peace makers and what that profile looks like on a personal and global scale; Social Justice, including a visit to the United Nations and in depth studies of organizations that promote social justice world-wide; and finally the Harriett Tubman Study that evokes an era of deep injustice and unparalleled courage.
After my class had presented their play WOLF and we had watched the other three plays and presentations I decided to hold a So What? discussion where I asked the students to reflect on why we had spent this substantial amount of time and energy on these subjects. These discussions begin as a gentle “in your face” challenge by the teacher to justify a learning experience.
SO WHAT?
WHY WOULD WE TAKE THE TIME TO CONSIDER ALL THESE SUBJECTS?
SO WHAT?
Since we frequently reflect on systems in second grade, not surprisingly, the student’s discussion quickly turned to what these disparate subjects might hold in common. Here are some of the comments from their discussion.
In defense of second grade studies………
What are some of the big ideas that our plays had in common?
· Everyone has the right to certain things
· Keeping the Earth healthy helps everything
· Humans should not threaten each other or other species
· People need to work hard for what they believe
· Find peaceful ways to solve problems
· Collaborate/cooperate
· Discuss things
· Listen
Big ideas – Peace, Human Rights, Species Diversity, Environmental Protection, Civil Rights, Advocacy
As I reflected on this animated and often passionate discussion I realized…………
How wonderful that our second grade students at the tender age of 7/8 are invited to consider these intricately interlinked ideas that will most certainly be in the global forefront of their lives. Our Second Graders have been invited into these conversations – to problem solve, to attempt solution and to dare advocacy. They are now, without reservation, wholly a part of these global considerations.
Repost from:
http://brendajorett.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/there-is-no-such-thing-as-away-finale
Sustainability goes on. There will be mid-course corrections in the process of getting communities, governments and individuals to understand that all our systems are connected. Sustainability is not just about the environment. As I’ve learned in the NJ Learns program, most people do not enter the sustainability topic from the environment. The topic is complex and can be messy; change happens slowly – almost excruciatingly slowly. Many baby steps lead to real change and understanding that steps taken now will preserve and conserve our society, resources, economy and all of the systems within for generations to come.
After about six months of off and on work to complete my practicum, I have ‘graduated’ from the NJ Learns program. Today our cohort heard the final projects from the educators and community participants in our cohort. The enthusiasm, creativity and persistence among all of the participants is admirable. There is a second grade teacher who has the freedom in her classroom and school to teach sustainability across the curriculum. Students are planting gardens; inner city children are learning that their world has much more than the black top that surrounds their school; Boy Scouts are learning how they can cut energy by simply changing out light bulbs; a science teacher who embraced Green Apple Day and got his school on board is also now reclaiming wood and making frames, trays and other objects as a side business. Sustainability never ends. My project is continuing – working with Sustainable Cherry Hill, the Cherry Hill Schools and PTAs and people in the region who are learning that everything we do now affects our children’s future and their children’s future and so on. One big take-away for me is that “There is no such thing as away.” Think of that when you toss something ‘away’ in the trash. Over time, thinking changes – we all change – and for the better.
NJ Learns Certificate and reclaimed wood frame by fellow New Jersey Learner,
Matt Ryan - One Man Gathers Studio.
Beyond Recycling is an artist-in-residence program funded by MetLife and Young Audiences Arts for Learning. Teaching Artists, Eloise Bruce and Zach Green, worked with students in grades 6-8 over a 10-day period to develop an original musical theater piece for younger students about creating a sustainable earth. This project is an outgrowth of YANJ's work with New Jersey Learns (NJ Learns), a program that unites schools and communities to learn and change together to instigate, sustain, and scale up the innovations and best practices that contribute to sustainability and that characterize Education for Sustainability.
Repost from: http://blog.grdodge.org/2010/02/15/new-jersey-learns-mondays-2
Original Post Date: February 15th, 2010
By Winnie Fatton of Sustainable Jersey
When I first heard about NJ Learns, it was an exciting, untried idea that the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation was supporting. Teams of educators, admins, parents, municipal representatives, and the general public – anyone who was committed to Educating for Sustainability (EfS) – were invited to apply for the program. I was working on “Green Jobs for NJ,” which was a pilot project to infuse EfS into the curricula of Career and Technical Schools. I brought 2 teachers to the first training session – one from the Mercer County Vocational Technical School District and one from Essex County Vocational Technical School District. I felt that it would be a great opportunity to learn from a “master” and to introduce classroom teachers to what I believe should be one of the most important educational themes in our schools.
I believe that sustainability is a theme which offers teachers from almost any discipline a way to get students involved with issues that are significant and relevant to their daily lives and to their future career choices. At career and technical schools, for example, EfS could be incorporated into the construction and HVAC trades (think green, high performance buildings), landscaping (management of stormwater run-off, recapture/reuse of wastewater, xeriscaping and other low maintenance plantings), culinary arts (school gardens, safe food/local food, composting), automotive (hydrogen fuel cells, hybrid cars), or a multitude of other career clusters. These are the jobs of the future.
But green jobs aren’t the only reason to think about sustainability; there are so many other linkages to science, math, English, history, even graphic arts. It takes some creativity, but teachers can develop lessons that relate real time/real world issues to what students are studying. Equally important, teachers can help foster the creative thinking we will need to come up with the solutions to these major challenges.
Now, in my work with the Sustainable Jersey program – a certification program for municipalities in New Jersey that want to go green, control costs and save money, and take steps to sustain their quality of life over the long term – I have the ability to work with a lot of different audiences. Sustainable Jersey offers over 64 different “actions” which municipalities can take to become more sustainable, from creating a Green Team, to doing energy audits for municipal buildings and establishing the carbon footprint of the municipality, to doing communication outreach and education. All of the actions in the program are supported by a series of tools which are available on the Sustainable Jersey website, as well as through training programs and workshops. Each action or “tool” is fully resourced and includes a description of the action: who should be involved, how much it will cost, how long it will take, as well as resources for helping municipalities to complete it.
My initial focus was on helping to develop “tools” which relate to the “education” sector – and in the second round of the program, Sustainable Jersey will be offering information about “Education for Sustainability” as well as “School Based Energy Conservation Programs.” The School Based Energy Conservation Programs focus on helping students, teachers and all school staff members to make behavioral changes, which can reduce energy consumption. Some participating schools have even reduced their energy bills by almost 20% through behavior modification alone. And the Education for Sustainability tool offers ideas and resources for teaching about sustainability, including, of course, the NJ Learns program.
Over 250 communities in NJ have signed up to become certified through the Sustainable Jersey program since its inception in February, 2009. Sustainable Jersey and NJ Learns offer opportunities for communities to share inspire and learn from one another as we all work together toward a sustainable future. By giving people an understanding of why it is important to be sustainable, as well as the tools we need to be a more sustainable society, we have begun to create a process that will foster collaboration, and ultimately, achieve success. The knowledge that there are so many great people out there working toward a sustainable future is very gratifying, and I’m thrilled to be part of it.
* * *
New Jersey Learns introduces teachers and community leaders to Education for Sustainability. Education for Sustainability (EfS) is a whole system approach to schools and communities learning together for a sustainable future and includes the Cloud Institute’s EfS Core Content Standards. The program brings community-based teams to participate in one year of introductory training, implementation, coaching and assessment activities. Want to participate? 2013-14 NJ Learns applications are due March 15th. Apply now.
Waste Not Card & Online Game - A card game in which players learn about keeping resources out of the landfill and using less energy in the cycling process.
New Jersey Learns associate and Game Designer, Kirsten Bonanza, created Waste Not because it drives her crazy to have to throw things away. The game itself as a way to explain the possible options available when an object is no longer good for its inital use. The core question of the game - What are you going to do with it? - challenges players to rethink trash as potential and resources. Waste Not is being made available as a card game for in person play and as an online game.
Kirsten's background is in teaching, facilitating, and consulting. Her interest in design lies in educating for sustainability and systems thinking. She also believes that we will achieve a sustainable future more easily by giving people the experience of how a large system (Earth) works in a playful environment. After Kirsten realized that she'd begun work on her 10th idea for a game, that while her heart calls out to teach and work with Entrepreneurs on building their organizations, it is obvious that Game Design is no longer just a hobby or tool for her own personal use. With her company Create Better Impact Games, Kirsten seeks to do just that - create better impact on the world.
Learn More: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/waste-not-card-online-game
Repost from: http://blog.grdodge.org/2010/03/03/new-jersey-learns-wednesday-edition
Original Post Date: March 3, 2010
By Angela Clerico
In a profession where the goal is to plan better communities it seemed to me that we were going about things the same way we had been for decades. Sure, over time the focus shifted away from sprawling communities and toward “smart growth” – building homes near major transportation corridors, protecting the environs. But, there had to be something more… a better way, still, to create more livable communities and communities that thrive, not just survive.
When I was introduced to the NJ Learns program, I was interested because I had an interest in the topic of sustainability. It has been called the largest social movement this planet has ever seen – only you don’t actually “see” it happening. Millions of people all over the world in town halls, school libraries, and community centers are getting together to implement their visions for change. They’re organizing events to inform their local officials and the community-at-large. It’s a movement alright, and I wanted to learn how to better communicate the concept. I learned more than that!
Participating in the NJ Learns program, I had many “aha” moments. From learning how to teach the concepts about and the data for sustainability to a better understanding of how people perceive sustainability and their concerns for changing behavior, I could see how the shift would not only have to come from the community, but that the local leaders would have to set the example. The lone planner in a room full of educators, I began to see how educating my audience would be a little different since I am not a teacher, per se, but that it could be just as powerful. Now, every time I walk into a planning board meeting the topic of sustainability is on my mind and is communicated through my work.
The hard part is that it is a process and results may not be seen overnight. In the NJ Learns program, we participated in a simulation where, in groups, we were fishermen. We had to fish the ocean in a manner that, with an average replenishment rate, the ocean would remain sustainable. The ocean would continue to produce fish for us to catch to maintain our livelihoods. The problem, however, was the same all around: everyone “crashed the system” by overfishing. It took many of the groups several tries, if not more, to figure out that we just had to make it through the down times in order to remain sustainable. Instead, different mentalities took over. “Everyone else was taking more than their share, so I should too!” “I could see this was not going to work, so I jumped on the bandwagon.”
These mentalities translate right into our communities and it is hard for residents and local leaders to see the benefits, when it is such incremental change.
There are a few popular phrases in local government that tend to set the tone for creating sustainability strategies. One is “How can we get the biggest bang for our buck?” Local leaders want to do right by their taxpayers, providing quality of life, but they don’t want to enforce practices that may cost money. The other is “Let’s look at the low-hanging fruit.” This is a good strategy for getting something off the ground. It is a quick way to get a project done and shows that the local leadership is doing something for the community. It also provides momentum for a larger-scale project that may take more time. However, it often doesn’t take into account the bigger picture.
The topic of sustainability is a tough web to untangle and make sense of. Land use planners are typically the ones to break down these issues and present them in a meaningful way so that local leaders can make decisions. Planners guide the development of ordinances, policies, and regulations, at the same time, supporting community-wide campaigns for residents to become more aware of how they can green their lifestyles. If all planners were speaking a shared language of planning for sustainability, we could create a paradigm shift toward sustainability and livable communities from the top-down and the bottom-up.
My NJ Learns training and practice of the program continues every day I am working to create more livable communities in NJ.
Repost from: http://blog.grdodge.org/2010/03/01/new-jersey-learns-mondays-4
Original Post Date: March 1, 2010
By David Hallowell, President of Sustainable West Milford
When I first learned of the NJ LEARNS Educating for Sustainability opportunity, we were well on our way to making changes in West Milford. We had established a nonprofit called Sustainable West Milford and grown our membership from 6 to over 400 people in just one year. We had a variety of action-oriented and educational programs including: monthly educational presentations; “Buy Local” campaigns; an organic community garden: and an annual GreenFest.
We were excited with the prospect of learning more, getting some new tools, and making some connections with other groups around the state to help move our efforts forward. The NJ Learns program delivered all that and more. I was in the first year of the training, and even continued my training for a second year! Not that I’m all that remedial, (well, maybe a little!) , but that fact is, I learned even more in the second year. And more importantly, I learned different things that have shaped the way I think about sustainability.
After the first year of Educating for Sustainability (EfS), my focus was on using the wonderful tools and information provided to better engage community members and convince them of the need to change their actions, for as Jaimie Cloud points out, “everything you do or DON’T do, makes a difference.” After the second year of the EfS training, I have become keenly aware of the need to change the thinking of our community in order to change their actions.
Often during presentations on sustainability, I am asked to describe what sustainability “looks like” in the community or in a school. My old answer used to include the usual suspects – they recycle, use renewable energy, buy local, compost, etc. In short, promoting different actions. Now, my answer begins with “they think differently – and that thinking leads to different actions”.
The old expression, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” provides a wonderful analogy to describe our shift. We have done a great job of leading the horses (tons of information and reasons why we should be acting more sustainably) and providing the water (actual opportunities to act differently through our programs), but not all were drinking. Many were, and indeed, many more did with each additional opportunity we provided. For example, Sustainable West Milford’s Farmer’s Market initiative was so successful last year that we attracted 14,000 shoppers. That is 14,000 people promoting our local economy, local agriculture, and effectively acting more sustainably.
But how do you get more people to drink the water? The answer is in helping them to start thinking differently. If we follow the problem of unsustainable actions “upstream,” to their source, we find faulty thinking. For example, in our culture, we tend to focus relieving the symptoms of a problem rather than the problem itself – we take a pill to lower our blood pressure while ignoring our lack of exercise, poor diet, and excess weight. This is an example from EfS of a phenomenon called “Shifting the Burden”. It is an Archetype in the system dynamics lexicon. Using this thinking leads you to working hard to resolve the symptoms of a problem while essentially ignoring the fundamental problem. With that approach, we address the symptom in the short run, but over time, we make it harder and harder to address, and then we create new problems. Similarly, SWM’s efforts have targeted community member actions while largely ignoring changing community member thinking – the fundamental problem. By addressing the fundamental problem, you can achieve win win win solutions. This is a better idea. [This paragraph has been editted for clarity: original text at http://blog.grdodge.org/2010/03/01/new-jersey-learns-mondays-4]
Make no mistake: this strategy of changing community members’ actions by providing information and opportunities to make real changes has been extremely effective and essential in building momentum, exposure, and support, but like most strategies, it has its limitations. For one thing, it is not fast enough – our window for change is a narrow one, and for another, we can only do so much!
So, this year, in addition to our action-oriented strategy, we introduced a companion strategy to address this need for a change in thinking. If community members change the way they think, they will lead themselves to make the choices that will result in a truly sustainable community. As Jaimie reminded us during our training, there is never just one reason for a problem and there is never just one solution!
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