The 2014 Green Schools National Conference Solution Summits will examine “Curriculum that Advances a Sustainable Future, ” a session that promises to be a thought-provoking look at how we can support and expand sustainability education in our nation’s classrooms.

Jamie Cloud, founder and president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, will lead this gathering of thought leaders from the ‘Education for Sustainability’ sector of the green schools movement.

Efforts have begun to create a national action plan for increasing and strengthening the availability, accessibility and quality of sustainability education in K-20 classrooms. One critical component to achieving this goal is a shared understanding of the core knowledge, skills and attitudes of education for a sustainable future. Drawing on a representative sample of relevant education-for-sustainability and related educational frameworks, summit participants will engage in a dialogue to explore similarities and differences; fields of study that contribute to and inform sustainability education; the core of sustainability education; the unique features of sustainability education; and the contribution that sustainability education makes to education for the future we want.

The goal is to use this dialogue to set a course that allows us all to work toward the same goal: high quality sustainability education in all schools.

The results of this conversation will be synthesized in a series of articles to be published in the Journal of Sustainability Education and serve as a catalyst for further conversations and workshops as we create an agenda to incorporate sustainability education in all schools across the United States.