Winter News | Oxford International Sustainability Curriculum + 2024 Design Studio

Introduction to EfS will immerse participants in systems thinking games and simulations, group discussions about economics and quality of life, and the science of sustainability.

Stories and case studies will be shared, we will explore contemporary ideas in EfS and we will envision what is possible when we educate for sustainability.

During the Curriculum Design Studio, we will use backwards design/ Understanding by Design (UbD), to re-orient, innovate, build, and map curricula designed to meet academic standards in addition to EfS standards, performance indicators, and enduring understandings - without additional class time.

Join us for the popular Intro to Education for Sustainability (EfS) One Day Workshop or a full week of Curriculum Design and Coaching.

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We're Proud to Announce the New Oxford International Curriculum for Sustainability!

The Cloud Institute is proud to announce the new Oxford International Curriculum for Sustainability! Now more than ever, teachers are increasingly looking for ways to bring the attributes of Education for Sustainability into the classroom, and today’s young people are counting on all of us to learn how to work together to make the shift toward a sustainable future.

The Cloud Institute is working closely with the Oxford International Curriculum team at Oxford University Press to build the vertically articulated series of project- based learning experiences from 1st year to 9th year (K-8 in the U.S.).

We wrote the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Framework for the series and are working closely with the lesson authors to make them come alive for students and teachers in classrooms all over the world!

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Apart, Together - A Book About Transformation

Educating for sustainability means inspiring children to think about the world, their relationship to it, and their ability to influence it in an entirely new way. Children learn the knowledge, skills, and mindsets to work towards their preferred future - a new paradigm for living with one another on Earth that celebrates our capability to thrive over time in the context of a rapidly changing and interdependent world.

Apart, Together - A Book About Transformation uses everyday scenes such as gardening, mixing color, playing a sport, and playing with blocks, to invite children and their grownups to read, discuss, play, imagine, and together, be curious about the connections that make up their world.

Having these types of conversations helps children build the muscle to see not only objects — a bee, soil, a soccer player— but to imagine how the interconnections and interactions among those objects can create something entirely new.

With each new page, critical thinking skills grow (such as observation, prediction, and sharing their ideas about how change happens) and the brain itself grows! And whether you’re 5 or 55, imagining how different parts interact to produce the results we see, is the first step in “systems thinking.” Developing early habits to imagine interconnections helps children feel more confident when dealing with complex problems as they grow.

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Planting The Seeds of Sustainability

Planting the seeds for a sustainable future starts early for these young students. It's at the core of one charter school's mission from how it's built, to what it serves.

We are happy to share this CBS feature about Mundo Verde Public Charter School, a PreK-5 bilingual school that serves students across two campuses in Washington D.C.

The Cloud Institute has been working with Mundo Verde for several years now because they are dedicated to educating for a sustainable future. It’s working!

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Announcing the 2024 Green Schools Conference

The Green Schools Conference (GSC) brings together everyone involved in creating and advocating for green schools, focusing on those leading their schools and school systems toward whole-school sustainability. Now in its 14th year, the three-day event provides a platform for the green schools community that inspires and facilitates the progress of the green schools movement.

Each year, the conference program includes a variety of educational formats that offer a deep dive into the most pressing green school topics within the areas of environmental impact, health and wellness, environmental and sustainability education, and whole-school sustainability culture.

Visit greenschoolsconference.org to learn more.

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The EfS Reservoir of Curriculum Exemplars

The EfS Reservoir is a multi-media repository of exemplars aligned to the EfS Benchmarks. The exemplars include quality curriculum units, courses, assessments, performance criteria, student work samples and eventually stories, interviews, discussions, images, narration and film that will illustrate the contexts and the impact of this work in schools and communities.

Do you have exemplary curricula or lesson plans that showcase the attributes of Education for Sustainability? We invite you to share your lesson plans and learning experiences for professional review. Help us grow the collection for quality curricula that educates for sustainability.

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Your Support Is Appreciated

The Cloud Institute exists to ensure the viability of sustainable communities by leveraging changes in PreK-12 school systems so that we may prepare young people for the shift toward a sustainable future. Friends like you make it possible.

Your donation gives us the flexibility to create new opportunities for the teachers, students and the communities we serve.

Summer Newsletter | Social Justice and Education for Sustainability

What to Preserve and What to Transform
Over time, life on Earth has experienced times of relative stability and has seen great disruptions like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and global pandemics. Evolution, devolution, five near extinctions and yet some form of life has prevailed, so far. In fact, it is those very disruptions that make life possible on “Spaceship Earth”. Life organizes towards life. We can learn from both our social and physical history to invent our future as we build the capability to thrive over time. Appropriate disturbances create the next cycle of life. So how do we disrupt systemic racism, inequities and injustices?

• Here you can find our Starter Unit Planner to respond to the unacceptable things people have been saying and doing in the U.S. because of racism, sexism and xenophobia.

• Cultural Competency and EfS Alignment PowerPoint

• Cultural Competency and EfS Alignment Handout

• Cultural Competency Aligned EfS Standards and Indicators

• Webinar: Moving Forward Together - What to Preserve & What to Transform

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This special, single-day offering is designed to increase participants’ awareness, knowledge, and understanding of the core concepts, content, and habits of mind that characterize Sustainability and Education for Sustainability (EfS). 
Cost: $149

In this curriculum design studio, we use backwards design, or Understanding by Design, to reorient, innovate, build, and map curricula designed to meet academic standards and EfS standards, performance indicators, and enduring understandings.
Cost: $495

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July 22nd 10am est.

NJSBA I-Steam and Sustainable Lessons John Henry and Jaimie P. Cloud will discuss why short-term, unsustainable thinking during COVID-19 could lead to long-term unsustainable schools. Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we used to create them”. Now, more than ever, is the time to think about reopening schools with the long term health of our school communities and every system and function of the school in mind. We know that sustainable actions create healthier schools at lower operational costs. Taking courageous steps now and solving problems by thinking differently, instead of taking actions driven by fear, could make a big difference in the health and well-being of our students and schools.

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The Cloud Commons EfS Digital Library houses Cloud Institute units and lessons, templates, assessment protocols, enduring workshop materials, videos, podcasts, and tools aligned to EfS Standards and Performance Indicators.

Purchase a 1 year pass and get access to all of our digital downloads, plus exclusive access to videos and podcasts by Jaimie Cloud.

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Remote Leadership Consulting and Curriculum Coaching

• Leadership Consulting: We provide consulting and leadership development to help administrators develop, implement and monitor a strategic plan for Education for Sustainability.

• Curriculum Coaching: We offer faculty coaching for curriculum design to support the development of lesson plans and units that are mapped and documented in a curriculum database, aligned to EfS and Common Core Standards, and that include assessments that measure meaningful learning.

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Employment Opportunity | Director of Youth Education Are you passionate about working towards a healthy planet that will sustain humans in harmony with the complex ecosystems we depend on? Do you like working with remote teams of impassioned individuals and partner organizations to achieve world-changing goals? Join the team! Apply by July 17, 2020

‘Women In Green’ Supporting The Green Schools Movement

“I'm still feeling the powerful impact of the Green Schools Conference last week, I personally feel it was the most productive conference to date. There was a strong acknowledgement between all attendees that furthering the green schools movement is imperative in helping to address the climate crisis we’re in, and it’s only by working closely together with a unified commitment to the implementation of green, healthy, and sustainable practices that we’ll create access for all students to healthy, sustainable schools.”- Bridgitte Alomes, Natural Pod

Storigins: Jaimie Cloud, Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education

How do we educate for the kind of future we want?

When I first heard about "sustainability" in 1987 it changed my entire framework as an educator... here's my Storigin:

Want a Sustainable Future? Educate for it!

Repost with permission from: http://blogs.bard.edu/mba/2015/06/16/want-a-sustainable-future-educate-for-it, & https://christinelizblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/want-a-sustainable-future-educate-for-it
Published June, 2015. Written by Christine Kennedy

Jaimie Cloud, Founder of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, with other education reformers, is looking to change K-12 education to create citizens ready for the challenges of the 21st century and beyond.  She has built principles and curricula supporting Education for Sustainability. The list of school districts that she has helped transform are on the Cloud Institute website’s client list.

Education for Sustainability stands in contrast to Educating about Unsustainability: the depressing story of how much is wrong with the world and how horrible we are as humans for destroying the planet and each other.  While many feel that “fear, doubt and uncertainty” is an effective way to wake people up, Cloud believes that it has the opposite effect on the psyche.  The brain shuts down when it perceives a threat and stops participating, leaving the body to fight or flight.  A disengaged brain is not effective if you’re trying to change mindsets. Jaimie tells a story about her preschool daughter coming home sad that “air pollution is bad.”  She didn’t fully understand why or even what air was but while she knew that bad stuff was out there, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it. What a burden for a 3 year old!

Educating about Sustainability presents a hopeful view of a new future: good food, community, living within planetary boundaries, meaningful work, and joy.  Jamie feels, however, that prior efforts at this lacked the competencies for building this wonderful future. She has set out to remedy that.

Educating for Sustainability (EfS) is based on the belief that we must create new neural connections.  Cloud suggests “an alternative to the air pollution story teaching children about the reciprocation of plants and humans:  humans breathe out CO2 which plants use to create food and give out O2 that humans can breathe in to support life.”  What student wouldn’t appreciate plants after that type of lesson? Of course this is a very simplistic view of the CO2 problem, as it relates to climate change, but it’s a foundation level appropriate for pre-school that can then support advanced learning in planetary systems as a child progresses through school.

Cloud’s journey toward EfS begins in Evanston, Illinois, as a student in one of the first Global Education schools.  It was 1968, the Vietnam era. The world was in turmoil, and schools were not immune. Global Education was created by professors at various universities with schools of education who came to believe that U.S. schools didn’t prepare their students for the complexity, diversity and uncertainty of the world around them. They came together to create curricula to ready students for the 21st century, which was still 30 years away.

Students, even as early as 6th grade, began to track data about the planet: the loss of languages and biodiversity, the changes to the atmosphere.  The data they collected showed that many aspects about our planet were in decline. Cloud felt like “the boy in the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes.  Didn’t anybody else see the problem?”

In 1987 with the Brundtland “Our Common Future” report that there was a name for this: unsustainable.  The 1992 Rio Summit then created Agenda 21, a roadmap for sustainability.  Within this was Chapter 36 delineating the first set of competencies needed to educate young people for the future.  Using her early schooling and the UN’s new competencies, Cloud began collecting and collating curricula for Educating for Sustainability from around the globe: working with NGOs, University Centers, Ministers of Education, local schools.

Today, there is more pressure for schools to reinvent their curriculum through the lens of sustainability.  The Center for Green Schools from the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has a goal that every school becomes a green school in this generation. The U.S. Department of Education has set 3 pillars to define a Green School: 1) health of occupants, 2) green building and 3) curriculum and instruction.  The first two pillars have more data and better defined standards. The third pillar is less defined and caught in the trap many feel that that EfS, Educating about Sustainability and Education about Unsustainable are equivalent. Outcomes of these different pedagogies need field analysis.

A three issue series in the Journal of Sustainability Education, seeking to bring the field together in a coherent manner, is being guest edited by Cloud.  The first was issued in late 2014. The theme is an invitation to scholars and thought leaders to weigh in on the essentials. A matrix of their work was created that spanned nine competency categories. The second issue, currently being edited, is a meta-analysis of the information received using grounded theory methodology to create benchmarks and measure impact.  The third issue will call for exemplars based on the nine competencies matrix and the meta-analysis.

What Cloud is doing is somewhat risky. Even Cloud Institute’s framework could need to change based on the creation of the new pillars. “But it’s worth the risk so that there can be a meshed framework”, says Cloud.  She believes that “one big area that needs to be included as a standard now as a result of our consensus process is the epistemology of thought: cognitive frameworks or ‘thinking about thinking.’ ”. It is difficult to shift mental models if you can’t recognize them or have language to describe them.

With all this is exciting work, there is still frustration.  Many sectors—government, business, energy, food, design—are addressing global un-sustainability, but to date, K-12 education has not been invited to the discussion table. There is little investment from the corporate or philanthropic worlds. Cloud has three ideas for why this is the case:

1)   Education, for good reason, is not considered innovative. For many, school was the least creative experience of their lives and they’ve had to unlearn mental models that keep them from building a sustainable world. To transform society we need to transform education. This is a daunting task.

2)   Investment in education is considered a 20-year payback and there aren’t 20 years to make the shift. “This is a classic misunderstanding of the power of youth leadership,” says Cloud. Young people are not afraid of innovation and their minds are creative, as long as they are given permission to use them. Adults who will not change their mindset for their own sake will break through mental brick walls for their children. See organizations like Teens Turning Green or Two Angry Moms.

3)   On the school side, branding as “Education for Sustainability” sounds like there is an agenda.  However, once educators see the curricula and programming they realize it is a curriculum based in meta-cognition, science, math, humanities and everything that goes into a good education.

The biggest barrier is understanding what EfS is all about. The EfS standards complement and can help make come alive the non-negotiable standards being imposed on school districts.

Some of the most enthusiastic supporters are underserved communities. The whole idea of sustainability is built around a positive reinforcing loop of justice, community health, and elimination of poverty. For teachers, it’s not just another set of standards they need to meet; teachers are remembering why they became educators.

I can’t help but be excited every time I talk to Jaimie. It is “joyful work” for her.

How can we all help her bring the vision of EfS to life? As a parent, you can encourage your local schools to engage in the EfS revolution. As an educator, build the competencies into your curriculum.  As a sustainability leader, bring educators to the table. As a citizen, support and advocate for systems that make a difference.

Originally published on Fairy Ninjas, Christine Kennedy’s personal blog. Christine is a scientist and engineer who sparks connections between people and ideas. She has experience with product development and sustainability impact metrics. Her objective is to make science accessible and relevant to a diverse population driving better social, economic and environmental solutions. She completed her Bard MBA in Sustainability in May 2015. You can follow her @CKennedySTEM

NYC DOE CTE | Cloud Partnership & EfS Programming

The Cloud Institute is proud to announce our new partnership with The NYC Department of Education's High School Career Technical Education (CTE) Office, Envirolution One, a leader in sustainability education and career development in NYC, green industry experts, and Rubicon Atlas, the Curriculum Mapping Software.
 
NYC High School Career and Tech Education has over 300 CTE programs in 120+ schools, serving more than 120,000 students annually. The goal of the CTE Sustainability Education Initiative,  is to educate for sustainability across all career pathways over the next several years.  In this first year, we will work with faculty from Automotive, Solar, Green Building, Electrical, and IT to develop, map and pilot exemplary units of study that meet the Cloud Institute's EfS Enduring Understandings, Standards and Performance Indicators, as well as industry standards appropriate to each career pathway. The exemplary units will be piloted during the 2015-16 school year. This program is one of the ways that educators and students in NYC can contribute to the goals of ONEnyc 2030, which encompasses The Mayor's Sustainability and Resiliency Initiatives.

The Journal of Sustainability Education Publishes the 2014 “State of the Field” Issue

By Jaimie P. Cloud, JSE Guest Editor

I am proud to announce the first in a series of three issues of the Journal of Sustainability Education entitled, Sustainability Education:  The State of the Field.  As Guest Editor of this Journal series it has been my privilege to work with an outstanding Editorial team who designed this series for one purpose - To create benchmarks for Sustainability Education by asking the thought leaders and scholars who have created and continue to study EfS to address the following questions:

What is Education for Sustainability (EfS)?  What are the “essential ingredients” of EfS that distinguish it from other educational frameworks? What paradigms, knowledge, skills and attitudes characterize EfS?  What instructional and engagement practices are congruent? What are the favorable organizational conditions that will make it possible?  What types of school/community partnerships are key?

I invite you to go to the Journal of Sustainability Education to see the Table of Contents of this first issue in the series.  Then I invite you to read my introduction to the series here, and finally to explore the Matrix we have created of the different author’s work. You will see that some authors have spent decades drilling down deeply into one aspect of Sustainability Education, while others have worked to conceptualize the whole system of EfS. Some have focused on content for one or two categories in our database template, and some have contributed material in all the categories. We have combined all grade levels here as a starting point - before we attempt over time to determine the developmental appropriateness of the different aspects of EfS for different age groups (although some of us have already begun to do that in our own work driven by the markets we serve).  You can sort the data by author and by category and you are invited to compare and contrast the thinking represented there. Remember, the overarching question is “What is essential to Education for Sustainability?”

Sneak Preview of the next two issues:

The 2nd Issue in the Series:  A Meta-Analysis
Fourteen years into the 21st Century, educators and decision makers on the ground must be able to trust that what they are doing, and what they are receiving in the way of assistance, meets the industry standards for EfS. In order for that to happen, we need to have agreed upon industry standards or “standards of excellence” for EfS.   In the 2nd issue of the series, a core group of the thought leaders and scholars and a group of emerging scholars will come together to conduct a meta-analysis of our collective body of work with the goal of developing industry standards for EfS.  These standards, which should come to represent the whole of our collective thinking to date, will be used by school administrators and Board members, text book publishers, parents, faculty, students and the community at large so that they can assess the extent to which their institutions are educating for a sustainable future, and to what extent they are meeting those industry standards. More importantly, these benchmarks can help us to produce and distribute the highest quality EfS programs, curricula and learning experiences, intentionally designed to accelerate the shift toward a healthy and sustainable future.

The 3rd Issue in the Series:  Exemplars
For the 3rd issue in the series, we will invite educators worldwide to submit exemplars of curriculum units, courses, assessments, rubrics and other forms of explicit performance criteria, as well as student work samples (with aligned performance criteria) that meet the EfS Standards of Excellence that emerge from the meta analysis published in the 2nd issue.

Please let us know your thoughts about the first issues - we are feedback driven and would love to hear from you. cloudinstitute.org/contact-us

Introducing Schools to the Future | The Journal of Wild Culture

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

The Las Vegas Downtown Project

The Cloud Institute is proud to announce that Jaimie Cloud will be a special consultant to the Education Initiative of the Las Vegas Downtown Project . We are working with an all-star team to create a 21st century state-of-the-art school system that works in partnership with the community to educate for a healthy, happy and sustainable future. We will begin with an early childhood center. This first learning community will enroll ages 6 weeks through kindergarten. The project involves the green renovation of an old and beautiful church building and grounds and is designed to integrate indoor and outdoor spaces for learning, growing, celebration and reflection.

Connie Yeh heads up the Education Initiative and Dr. Meg Murray is leading the research and design efforts of this extraordinary project. Jaimie Cloud joins Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Marie Alcock, Pat Wolfe, Trish Martin, Michelle Gielan, Ellen Booth Church and Cecilia Cruse, Ginny Streckewald and Debi Crimmins on the global think tank team to create the new paradigm for 21st century teaching and learning designed for the future we want.

Learn more about this exciting project here: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/dec/13/planning-zappos-school-long-community-involvement