Resources: Core Practice 1
Curriculum that Advances Environmental Literacy and SustainabilityToolbox Resources
5 Gyres NextGen Educational Curriculum
Developed by the 5 Gyres Institute, whose mission is to empower action against the global health crisis of plastic pollution through science, education, and adventure, the 5 Gyres NextGen Educational Curriculum covers a variety of science subjects through the lens of plastic pollution. Topics include: plastic pollution sources and solutions, food chains, body systems, waste management, cause and effect, human impact, identifying plastics, watersheds, the water cycle, understanding currents, and packaging engineering solutions. All lessons follow Next Generation Science Standards and involve either a game or a hands-on activity, as well as problem-solving questions, math, and graphing.
12 Engaging Science Apps for Middle and High School Students
Project Learning Tree pulled together these 12 free science apps, focusing on topics such as climate change, trees, conservation, and weather. All apps complement Project Learning Tree’s lesson plans. Apps include stand-alone games, interactive teaching tools, and reference guides.
Achieve the Core offers a number of free, ready-to-use classroom resources designed to help educators understand and implement Common Core and other college and career ready standards.
Across the Spectrum: Resources for Environmental Educators
Environmental educators work in a variety of places to design, deliver, and evaluate programs that inform, motivate, and empower learners of all ages. This collection of resources, perspectives, and examples will help nonformal environmental educators learn more about the field of environmental education, access resources and gain skills to improve their practice, and over time, build a community of practitioners to advance the field. The third edition (2016) of this e-book has ten chapters that can be viewed or downloaded at no charge.
Alliance of Artists Communities Arts + Ecology Tools and Resources
This resource guide includes suggested reading, tips and toolkits, and inspiring materials that illustrate how environmental sustainability can be woven into arts programs.
American Society for Engineering Education Teacher Resources
This website features a variety of tools and resources dedicated to exploring and teaching engineering education, including lesson plans, class activities, K-12 outreach programs, and web resources.
A project of the Leonore Annenberg Institute for Civics, Annenberg Classroom provides a comprehensive, multimedia curriculum on the Constitution. Free classroom resources include videos, games, lesson plans, and timelines as well as the Annenberg Guide to the Constitution, which provides the original text and then explains it in plain language. These materials are provided to equip middle and high school teachers with the tools to create informed citizens who understand their rights and responsibilities as outlined in the Constitution.
Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity
From Amazon.com: What is the cultural dimension of sustainability? This book offers a thought-provoking answer, with a theoretical synthesis on cultures of sustainability. Describing how modernity degenerated into a culture of unsustainability, to which the arts are contributing, Sacha Kagan engages us in a fundamental rethinking of our ways of knowing and seeing the world. We must learn not to be afraid of complexity, and to re-awaken a sensibility to patterns that connect. With an overview of ecological art over the past 40 years, and a discussion of art and social change, the book assesses the potential role of art in a much needed transformation process.
Art IS Education: Sustainability Education Guide
Alameda County Arts Commission, in partnership with Alameda County Sustainability, Alameda County Probation Department, and Alameda County Office of Education, created this guide as a complement to the 2011 Art IS Education initiative. It includes examples of student work, a suggested project plan, and resources that explore arts education from a sustainable and environmental perspective.
The Art of Sustainability: Creative Expression as a Tool for Social Change
This article from the Society for Organizational Learning’s journal Reflections highlights how artist Jay Mead uses the arts to connect people with nature and tap into their personal visions of a more sustainable future.
The Aspen Global Change Institute is dedicated to advancing the understanding of Earth system science and global environmental change through interdisciplinary workshops, research and consulting, and education and outreach. The website includes a virtual classroom with useful materials on the fundamentals of earth science, field studies, and lifelong learning workshops.
BEETLES: Science and Teaching for Field Instructors
BEETLES (Better Environmental Education, Teaching, Learning, and Expertise Sharing) is one of many programs at the Lawrence Hall of Science, a public science center created in 1968 as part of the University of California at Berkeley. BEETLES is devoted to creating:
- versatile environmental education professional learning materials;
- student activities for use in the field;
- a collaborative, resource-sharing network of environmental educators; and
- additional resources for field instructors, leaders, and classroom teachers.
All BEETLES resources are based on current research and understandings about how people learn and tested by dozens of programs in diverse settings all over the country (and beyond). Although BEETLES materials have been designed for residential outdoor science schools, they have been snatched up and used successfully in a wide variety of outdoor science education settings.
Beginner’s Guide to K-12 Design Thinking
Thomas Riddle, Assistant Director of the Roper Mountain Science Center and an Edutopia blogger, has assembled this comprehensive beginner’s guidebook to design thinking, including resources from recognized education organizations and websites such as Edutopia, D.School, The K-12 Lab, KQED Mind/Shift, and IDEO, to name a few.
Beyond Benign is a nonprofit that is dedicated to providing future and current scientists, educators, and citizens with the tools to teach and learn about green chemistry to create a sustainable future. The organization offers professional development, education, and online training for educators to teach them about green chemistry and how to implement it in their classrooms. Educators can access and download a variety of materials from Beyond Benign’s website, including curricular materials for middle and high school classrooms.
Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment
This Center for Ecoliteracy resource, developed in partnership with National Geographic, identifies key concepts that help students understand the linkages between the food we eat, the ways that culture shapes our food choices and behaviors, the relationship between food and our health, and the interconnections between our food systems and the environment.
Biomimicry and Science: Applying Nature’s Strategies
Co-authored by the Biomimicry Institute and EcoRise Youth Innovations, Biomimicry and Science: Applying Nature’s Strategies introduces students to eco-literacy and design innovation concepts through project-based learning methodologies and by emphasizing real-world applications. At a time when we need sustainable solutions to solve many pressing local and global challenges, researchers are finding that solutions to many of these problems already exist in nature. Biomimicry is the practice of looking to nature for strategies to solve human challenges. This course for grades 9 – 12 reinforces core content in chemistry, physics, and biology, using striking examples from nature and bio-inspired design as a framework to capture student interest. The curriculum is aligned to Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
The Biomimicry Institute is the world’s leading nonprofit dedicated to innovation inspired by nature. Biomimicry offers an exciting project-based approach that helps teachers blend STEM and environmental education in creative, hands-on lessons students love. The Biomimicry Institute helps educators and organizations bring biomimicry into their teaching by providing curriculum and training, networking opportunities, and content development support. Learn more about our services and visit the online library, AskNature, for the resources and information you need to bring biomimicry into your teaching practice.
Biomimicry in Youth Education: A Resource Toolkit for K-12 Educators
Biomimicry in Youth Education: A Resource Toolkit for K-12 Educators is a digital flipbook indexing over 80 biomimicry education resources, selected to assist teachers working with students from kindergarten through high school. The collection includes quality lesson plans, curricular units, digital media, and more, gleaned from a broad survey of available materials. For educators new to the subject of biomimicry, the toolkit also offers a thorough introductory section that contains an orientation to biomimicry core concepts and suggested strategies for communicating those ideas to students (the introductory content from this publication was updated and enhanced in a newer resource, Sharing Biomimicry with Young People). Note: you will need to sign up for a free account with Ask Nature to download this resource.
Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Best Practices
From Amazon.com: The Biomimicry Resource Handbook: A Seed Bank of Best Practices contains over 250 pages of our most current biomimicry thinking, methodology, and tools for naturalizing biomimicry into the culture. We believe there is no better design partner than nature. But biomimicry is more than just looking at the shape of a flower or dragonfly and becoming newly inspired; it’s a methodology that’s being used by some of the biggest companies and innovative universities in the world. While reading this text you’ll be immersed into the world of Biomimicry the “verb,” you’ll gain a competitive edge, and a fresh perspective on how the world around us can, does, and should work. After reading the text, you’ll be well on your way to thinking in systems, designing in context, identifying patterns, and most importantly seeing the millions of organisms around us…differently.
The text is directly applicable to designers, biologists, engineers, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, but has also proven valuable to students, educators, and a wide variety of other disciplines.
Developed by the Biomimicry Institute, this toolbox provides an orientation to biomimicry and introduces a set of tools and core concepts that can help problem-solvers from any discipline begin to incorporate insights from nature into their solutions. The toolbox was assembled to support individuals and teams participating in design challenges organized by the Biomimicry Institute and/or their affiliates but can be used to support classroom lessons as well.
Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge
The Biomimicry Youth Design Challenge (YDC) is a free, hands-on, project-based learning experience that provides classroom and informal educators with a framework to introduce biomimicry as an engineering design strategy, to integrate relevant purposeful STEM experiences, and to provide engaging instruction aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. Working in teams with an adult coach, middle and high school students design bio-inspired solutions to address a local sustainability problem that affects the global climate.
Bringing School to Life: Place-Based Education Across the Curriculum
From Amazon.com: Bringing School to Life: Place-Based Education Across the Curriculum by Sarah Anderson offers insights into how to build a program across the K-8 grades. Anderson addresses key elements such as mapping, local history, citizen science, integrated curricula, and more. Additionally, Anderson suggests strategies for building community partnerships and implementation for primary grades. This book goes beyond theory to give concrete examples and advice in how to make place-based education a real educational option in any school.
Bumble Bee Watch is a collaborative effort to track and conserve North America’s bumble bees. This citizen science project allows individuals to:
- Upload photos of bumble bees to start a virtual bumble bee collection;
- Identify bumble bees in photos and have identifications verified by experts;
- Help researchers determine the status and conservation needs of bumble bees;
- Help locate rare or endangered populations of bumble bees;
- Learn about bumble bees, their ecology, and ongoing conservation efforts; and
- Connect with other citizen scientists.
The Bumble Bee Watch website offers FAQs, tools, and resources for participating, as well as opportunities to learn more about where and what types of bees have been sited.
California Education and the Environment Initiative (EEI) Curriculum
EEI is California’s groundbreaking, first-in-the nation K-12 environmental education curriculum. It is California State Board of Education-approved, teaches select California science and history/social science standards, and helps support Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards. Although developed to meet California standards, some lessons may be adapted for use by educators in other states.
California’s Blueprint for Environmental Literacy
On September 15, 2015, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson released A Blueprint for Environmental Literacy. The blueprint lays out six guiding principles and six key strategies that support the goal of increasing environmental literacy for all California schools. Among these principles and strategies is the recommendation to integrate environmental education into subjects educators are already required to cover. Upon full implementation, the blueprint will ensure all California students receive high quality instruction.
Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, conducts research on the civic and political engagement of young Americans, especially those who are marginalized or disadvantaged in political life. The organization’s scholarly research informs policy and practice for healthier youth development and a better democracy.
Citizen Science Academy provides online professional development resources for educators to support effective implementation of citizen science projects and activities that focus on ecology and environmental sciences. Courses are 30-day, graded, self-paced, and semi-facilitated with five to seven stand-alone units that have stated learning objectives, background content, readings, discussion forums, classroom learning activities, assignments, and self-assessments. Optional graduate-level continuing education credits are available from the Colorado School of Mines.
Citizen Z: An Education Week Project
Education Week undertook a long-term investigation to better understand the state of civic education in America’s classrooms. This collection of articles presents the investigation’s initial results and explores what it’s like to teach civics in a divided nation.
Civic Education in the Elementary Grades: Promoting Student Engagement in an Era of Accountability
From Amazon.com: As former elementary school teachers, the authors focus on what is possible in schools rather than a romantic vision of what schools could be. Based on a 5-year study of an elementary school, this book shows how civic engagement can be purposive and critical―a way to encourage young people to examine their environment, to notice and question injustices, and to take action to make a difference in their communities and school. Focusing on the intersection of student voice and critical inquiry, the book describes how to embed civic engagement into curriculum, school decisionmaking processes, and whole-school activities. Chapters provide an overview of what research has demonstrated about civic engagement at the classroom, school, and community levels, including detailed descriptions of activities and lessons for practice. Classroom teachers, school principals, community members, and teacher educators can use this resource to foster a deeper, richer understanding of what is entailed in civic life.
Book Features:
- A vivid portrait of a “typical” public school that wants to do more than teach to the test.
- An examination of the conditions that enable young people to participate in democratic practices, including identifying and questioning injustices.
- Concrete examples of student voice and critical inquiry in classroom contexts.
- Practices and activities that encourage children to get along with others, exchange perspectives, and work across differences.
Climate Change and Human Health Lesson Plans from NIEHS
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) developed a Climate and Health learning module for use in high school classrooms interested in exploring the health impacts of climate change. The module promotes learning about the complex interactions between climate change, the environment, and human health and uses content from the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s 2016 report, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. The materials are available free of charge and can be adapted for other grades and informal educational settings. The module integrates multiple science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts for earth and life sciences. It was designed with Next Generation Science Standards in mind.
Additional NIEHS developed environmental health and science training materials can be found at: https://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/scied/teachers/
The Climate Change in My Backyard curriculum series, designed for students in grades 5-12, integrates student participation in Project BudBurst with NASA climate data to teach about climate change and its consequences for our environment using an earth-systems science approach. Aligned with Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, the curriculum incorporates best practices in inquiry teaching and scaffolds students’ use of science practices to support learning of disciplinary core ideas and connecting cross-cutting concepts.
The series consists of three complete curricula, targeting different age levels—grades 5 to 6, grades 7 to 9, and grades 10 to 12. Each curriculum comprises four units that address critical aspects of a systems approach to understanding climate and its impacts on humans and the environment:
- Understanding the Earth as a system
- Identifying key changing conditions of the earth system
- Recognizing earth-system responses to natural and human-induced changes
- Predicting the consequences of changes for human civilization
This series was developed by the Chicago Botanic Garden with support from NASA and in collaboration with the National Ecological Observatory Network and schools and teachers throughout Illinois.
Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy
Climate Generation: A Will Steger Legacy is a nationally connected and trusted nonprofit dedicated to climate literacy, climate change education, youth leadership, and citizen engagement for innovative climate change solutions. The organization provides resources and opportunities for educators, youth, policy makers, communities, and businesses to build climate literacy, develop powerful climate advocates, and elevate leadership. Visit their website to learn more about available curriculum, trainings, professional development, and networking opportunities.
Climate Interactive’s World Energy Simulation
The World Energy Simulation is a role playing exercise that enables people to try out the policies and investments that will allow them to reach their goals on climate change. With a focus on the mix of policy solutions that will lead to a more stable climate, this simulation can inspire hope that is grounded in our best understanding of the dynamics of the energy and climate system. This website includes resources you need to conduct this simulation in your classroom.
Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN)
The CLEAN Network is a professionally diverse community of 630+ members committed to improving climate and energy literacy. The CLEAN Network website has two sections of interest to K-12 stakeholders. The CLEAN Collection of Climate and Energy Educational Resources is a high-quality and rigorously reviewed collection of over 700 free climate and energy educational resources aligned with climate literacy and energy literacy frameworks and Next Generation Science Standards. Guidance in Teaching About Climate and Literacy offers examples and tools to help educators step their students through the key principles of climate and energy.
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Teaching Climate Science
Climate Literacy: The Essential Principles of Climate Science is an interagency guide that provides a framework and essential principles for formal and informal education about climate change. It presents important information for individuals and communities to understand Earth’s climate, impacts of climate change, and approaches for adapting and mitigating change. Principles in the guide can serve as discussion starters or launching points for scientific inquiry. The guide can also serve educators who teach climate science as part of their science curricula.
Climate Wisconsin is an educational multimedia project featuring stories of climate change, from warming trout streams and decreasing ice cover to lower lake levels and extreme heat. These stories are produced to support teaching and learning about climate change in Wisconsin and are available in a variety of formats.
Common Sense Education supports K–12 schools with everything educators need to empower the next generation of digital citizens. Our innovative, award-winning Digital Citizenship Curriculum prepares students with lifelong habits and skills, supports teachers with training and recognition, and engages families and communities with helpful tips and tools.
Communicating Climate Change: A Guide for Educators
From Cornell Open: Environmental educators face a formidable challenge when they approach climate change due to the complexity of the science and of the political and cultural contexts in which people live. There is a clear consensus among climate scientists that climate change is already occurring as a result of human activities, but high levels of climate change awareness and growing levels of concern have not translated into meaningful action. Communicating Climate Change provides environmental educators with an understanding of how their audiences engage with climate change information as well as with concrete, empirically tested communication tools they can use to enhance their climate change program.
Starting with the basics of climate science and climate change public opinion, Armstrong, Krasny, and Schuldt synthesize research from environmental psychology and climate change communication, weaving in examples of environmental education applications throughout this practical book. Each chapter covers a separate topic, from how environmental psychology explains the complex ways in which people interact with climate change information to communication strategies with a focus on framing, metaphors, and messengers. This broad set of topics will aid educators in formulating program language for their classrooms at all levels. Communicating Climate Change uses fictional vignettes of climate change education programs and true stories from climate change educators working in the field to illustrate the possibilities of applying research to practice. Armstrong et al, ably demonstrate that environmental education is an important player in fostering positive climate change dialogue and subsequent climate change action.
From Amazon.com: The Complete Guide to Service Learning is the go-to resource in the fast-growing field of service learning. It is an award-winning treasury of activities, ideas, quotes, reflections, and resources and provides hundreds of annotated book recommendations, author interviews, and expert essays, all presented within a curricular context and organized by theme. This new edition maintains the easy-to-use format of the original and is enhanced to reflect the most up-to-date service learning pedagogy.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology: BirdSleuth
BirdSleuth is an inquiry-based science curriculum that engages kids in scientific study and real data collection through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s exciting citizen science projects. BirdSleuth provides educators with kits that:
- Encourage kids to answer their own questions about nature using the scientific process.
- Spend time outdoors, connecting with nature by focusing on the fascinating sights, sounds, and behaviors of birds.
- Motivate kids by the real-world importance of the data they enter online, which scientists use to understand and conserve birds.
BirdSleuth offers a variety of resources, as well as opportunities for in-person training, workshops, and online webinars for all types of educators who are looking for top-notch professional development. BirdSleuth even offers a free student publication, BirdSleuth Investigator, that is written by students, for students and can be downloaded from the website.
Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature
From Amazon: Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature has been hailed by Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, as “good medicine for nature-deficit disorder.” The first edition quickly became the essential guidebook for mentors, parents, teachers, camp directors, and others wanting fun and exciting ways to connect children (and adults!) with nature.
The completely revised and updated Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, 2nd Edition, written by Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown, is an even more valuable resource for reconnecting people to the natural world. Based on feedback from nature mentors and educators around the world, the second edition is more comprehensive and easier to use, with beautiful full color photographs, a comprehensive index, and color codes that link the principles and activities for easier navigation.
Coyote mentoring is a method of learning that has been refined over thousands of years, based on instilling the need-to-know. Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, 2nd Edition reveals this approach and what happens to student and teacher during the mentoring process. Strategies like questioning, storytelling, tracking, mapping, and practicing survival skills will inspire student curiosity and encourage self-sufficiency. Background information will help parents, teachers, and others feel more confident in introducing children to new ways of experiencing and learning about the natural world.
Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature, 2nd Edition will change the way you walk in the woods, whether by yourself or with your children.
Cultivating Change: A Cross-Age Arts, Literacy, and Sustainability Project
This essay, originally published in The Journal of Sustainability Education, describes a cross-age project between a fourth-grade class and university students in which the two groups of students worked together on a dramatic performance of Paul Fleischman’s book, Seedfolks (1997, 2014).
This website offers a deep dive into deeper learning, including an overview of critical competencies fostered by deeper learning; teaching, learning, and assessment methods that support deeper learning; examples of what deeper learning looks like in K-12 schools; and opportunities to take action to support policies and practices that advance deeper learning in schools.
Deeper Learning for Every Student Every Day
This paper, authored by Carri Schneider and Tom Vander Ark, is dedicated to dispelling the myths around deeper learning and showing it can happen anywhere with any students and all teachers. Deeper Learning for Every Student Every Day includes 20 school profiles, each one offering advice and best practices for creating a deeper learning culture for students and teachers.
From Amazon.com: While education reformers and policy makers grapple with big fixes and the politics of national initiatives, most teachers and parents share the simple and urgent desire for students―especially those from low-income communities―to be on the road to college and ultimately to develop into people who will be equipped to thrive in the unpredictable future ahead of them. Nevertheless, the great majority of American schools do not respond to this urgent need. And just what this sort of education looks like, day to day, remains elusive.
In Deeper Learning, education strategist Monica R. Martinez and sociologist Dennis McGrath take us inside eight schools that have set out to transform the experience of learning. In these schools, we meet teachers and students who show us just what “Deeper Learning” looks like. The examples from these pages―from high school kids developing energy-saving solutions alongside engineers to young people discovering the complexities of sustainability on an oral history expedition to Appalachia―offer an inspiring and expanded vision of what’s possible in schools today.
An accessibly written showcase of schools and practices designed to empower educators and students alike, here is a book for all who are concerned with the dual need for American schools to be genuinely innovative and to embrace what works. Deeper Learning demonstrates how students in their teen years can become passionate learners and global citizens ready to take on a world increasingly defined by new technologies, economic shifts, and profound social challenges.
Deeper Learning: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
This resource from the Hewlett Foundation explores deeper learning in K-12 schools; that is, students using their knowledge and skills in such a way that prepares them for real life. You will learn what deeper learning is, why it is important, how it helps prepare students, and where you can find additional resources.
Design Squad Global empowers middle school students to solve real-world problems and understand the impact of engineering in a global context. Refreshed weekly with challenges, videos, and activities, Design Squad Global’s website is one of the only places on the web where kids can share their engineering ideas with other kids. The Parents and Educators webpage provides adults with tools, such as guides, lesson plans, and training, they can use to help kids develop design process skills and apply them to an exciting array of engineering challenges.
This resource from Stanford d.school is an active toolkit of tools and methods that can be used to support your design thinking practice.
Design Thinking for Educators Toolkit
Developed by IDEO, this toolkit contains a design thinking process overview with methods and instructions that help you put design thinking into action, as well as IDEO’s Designer’s Workbook, adapted specifically for K-12 educators.
Design Thinking for School Leaders: Five Roles and Mindsets that Ignite Positive Change
From Amazon.com: Design Thinking for School Leaders explores the changing landscape of leadership and offers practical ways to reframe the role of school leader using Design Thinking, one step at a time. Leaders can shift from “accidental designers” to “design-inspired leaders,” acting with greater intention and achieving greater impact. You’ll learn how viewing the world through a more empathetic lens—a critical first step on the path to becoming a design-inspired leader—can raise your awareness of the uniqueness of your teachers and students and prompt you to question the ways in which they experience your school.
Gallagher and Thordarson detail five specific roles to help you identify opportunities for positively impacting students, teachers, districts, parents, and the community:
- Opportunity Seeker. Shifts from problem solving to problem finding.
- Experience Architect. Designs and curates learning experiences.
- Rule Breaker. Challenges the way things are “always” done.
- Producer. Gets things done and creates rapid learning cycles for teams.
- Storyteller. Captures the hearts and minds of a community.
Full of examples of Design Thinking in action in schools across the country, Design Thinking for School Leaders can help you guide your school to the forefront of the new design + education movement, one that will move traditional education into the modern world and drive the future of learning.
Design Thinking for Teens partners with teens, teachers, and nonprofits to bring design thinking programs into schools. Their website features a free downloadable toolkit to help jumpstart design thinking at K-12 schools through hosting a design thinking event. Training opportunities for educators are also offered.
From Amazon.com: Whether your students are tackling project-based learning or developing solutions in the STEM maker lab, design thinking will help them be more innovative. The design-thinking process, practices and mindsets teach 21st-century skills such as adaptability, collaboration and critical thinking.
The design thinking program described in this book helps develop students’ mindsets in a way that is more conducive to producing innovative solutions. It allows students to apply their creativity to tackle real-world issues and achieve better results through the use of its five learning phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test.
Digital Technology’s Role in Connecting Children and Adults to Nature and the Outdoors
This National Wildlife Federation report (published June 2017) focuses on finding ways to harness digital technology and apps for worthwhile and life-changing nature experiences. It contains research background and common-sense guidelines for how handheld digital technology and apps can be designed and used to meaningfully connect children and adults to nature and the outdoors.
Dirty Teaching: A Beginner’s Guide to Learning Outdoors
From Amazon.com: Juliet Robertson offers tips and tricks to help any teacher develop variety in their teaching. One of the keys to a happy and creative classroom is getting out of it, and this book will give you the confidence to do it. It contains a wealth of ideas that allow teachers and parents to encourage outdoor learning and improve student participation. All you need is your coat, a passion for learning– oh, and bring the kids too!
DiscoverE offers a growing number of hands-on activities, videos, and other resources that volunteers, parents, and students can use to explore engineering. The site also introduces national engineering outreach programs.
Discovery Education offers a broad range of free classroom resources for teachers in grades K-12. Subjects covered include science, math, English, social studies, health, and technology. Find lesson plans, videos, puzzles, worksheets, and more.
Earth Day Network Climate Education Week Toolkit
The Climate Education Week Toolkit is a free, easy-to-use, ready-to-go resource with hand-picked lesson plans, activities, and contests for K-12 students. It meets Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core standards.
Earth Force partners with school districts and education and environmental organizations to incorporate civic experiences into STEM and environmental education, ensuring students have the knowledge, skills, and motivation to be effective civic participants who bring environmental values to public decision-making. In addition to its professional development opportunities, Earth Force has curated a collection of online resources to help educators implement their Community Action and Problem-Solving Process in their classrooms.
Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect
From Amazon.com: In Earth in Mind, noted environmental educator David W. Orr focuses not on problems in education, but on the problem of education. Much of what has gone wrong with the world, he argues, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that: alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical; deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.
The crisis we face, Orr explains, is one of mind, perception, and values. It is, first and foremost, an educational challenge. The author begins by establishing the grounds for a debate about education and knowledge. He describes the problems of education from an ecological perspective and challenges the “terrible simplifiers” who wish to substitute numbers for values. He follows with a presentation of principles for re-creating education in the broadest way possible, discussing topics such as biophilia, the disciplinary structure of knowledge, the architecture of educational buildings, and the idea of ecological intelligence. Orr concludes by presenting concrete proposals for reorganizing the curriculum to draw out our affinity for life.
Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence
From Amazon.com: Hopeful, eloquent, and bold, Ecoliterate offers inspiring stories, practical guidance, and an exciting new model of education that builds – in vitally important ways – on the success of social and emotional learning by addressing today’s most important ecological issues.
This book shares stories of pioneering educators, students, and activists engaged in issues related to food, water, oil, and coal in communities from the mountains of Appalachia to a small village in the Arctic; the deserts of New Mexico to the coast of New Orleans; and the streets of Oakland, California to the hills of South Carolina.
Ecoliterate marks a rich collaboration between Daniel Goleman and the Center for Ecoliteracy, an organization best known for its pioneering work with school gardens, school lunches, and integrating ecological principles and sustainability into school curricula. For nearly twenty years the Center has worked with schools and organizations in more than 400 communities across the United States and numerous other countries.
Ecoliterate also presents five core practices of emotionally and socially engaged ecoliteracy and a professional development guide.
EdChange’s Multicultural Pavilion
The Multicultural Pavilion is an award-winning website that houses free resources for educators dedicated to equity and social justice in schools. Resources of interest for K-12 educators include the Teachers Corner, with curricular and pedagogical tools for educators at all levels, and a collection of awareness activities that can be adapted for classroom use.
EDTech Blog: 9 Steps to a Future-Ready Education
In this blog post, author Jon Phillips presents nine steps for schools and administrators to consider for bringing future-ready momentum to the classroom, from embracing student-led learning and developing assessments, to community collaboration and planning for the future. Examples of schools implementing these practices are highlighted.
Educating for Sustainability: Principles and Practices for Teachers
From Amazon.com: Educating for Sustainability presents fundamental principles, theoretical foundations, and practical suggestions for integrating education for sustainability into existing schoolwide systems and programs, organized in three sections: Principles of Education for Sustainability; Fostering a Sustainability Worldview; Learning and Thinking for Sustainability.
Designed for teachers and teachers-to-be at all grade levels and across the content areas, the focus is on professional practices and pedagogical approaches rather than specific topics often associated with sustainability. Each chapter includes a number of supports to help readers monitor and improve their own professional practice and to deepen their own sustainability world view, including textboxes in most chapters that provide more detailed or specialized information and a range of application exercises. All chapters include several “Consider This” activities and an “Extend Your Professional Knowledge” feature. Directly grounded in K-12 classroom practice, this book presents useful and realistic information for teachers looking to reorient their work toward sustainability and help their students develop new thinking and problem-solving abilities.
Education and the Environment: Creating Standards-Based Programs in Schools and Districts
From Harvard Education Press: In this timely book, curriculum expert Gerald A. Lieberman provides an innovative guide to creating and implementing a new type of environmental education that combines standards-based lessons on English language arts, math, history, and science with community investigations and service learning projects.
By connecting academic content with local investigations, environmental study becomes not simply another thing added to the classroom schedule but an engaging, thought-provoking context for learning multiple subjects.
The projects outlined in the book further students’ understanding of the way human and natural “systems” interact locally and globally and provide the next generation with the knowledge necessary for making decisions that will be critical to their future—and ours.
Education, Arts and Sustainability
From Springer: This book addresses this challenge by proposing an integration of sustainability and arts education in both principle and practice.
In a global context of intensifying social, economic and environmental crises, education is key to raising awareness and motivating individuals and communities to act in sustaining life in our more-than-human world. But how is this done when the complexity and need for change becomes overwhelming, and schooling systems become complicit in supporting the status quo?
Drawing on critical education theory and precepts of creativity, curiosity and change, it documents a series of case examples that demonstrate how five principles of Education for Sustainability – critical thinking, systems thinking, community partnership, participation, and envisioning better futures – are found at the heart of much arts practice in schools. Featuring the creative work and voices of teachers working in arts-based enquiry and diverse community-engaged contexts, the book investigates how sustainability principles are embedded in contemporary arts education thinking and pedagogy. The authors are unapologetically optimistic in forming an alliance of arts and sustainability education as a creative response to the challenge of our times, arguing that while they may have operated on the margins of conventional pedagogy and curriculum, they have more than marginal impact.
EducationCloset supports teachers, leaders, and artists using arts integration and STEAM education through world-class, comprehensive professional development and resources. Resources include free lessons, teacher printables, and ArtsEd Lab, an online monthly magazine. Professional development opportunities include online classes, virtual workshops and conferences, and a certification program.
Education for a Sustainable Future Benchmarks: For Individual and Social Learning
Education for a Sustainable Future: Benchmarks for Individual and Social Learning was released by The Journal of Sustainability Education in 2017. This 70-page account is authored by, and represents the current and best thinking of, forty-two scholars and practitioners of the field of Education for Sustainability (EfS). The Benchmarks include the Big Ideas, Thinking Skills, Applied Knowledge, Dispositions, Actions, and Community Connections that define Education for Sustainability. They embody essential elements that administrators, curriculum professionals, faculty, board and community members may adopt: to align goals; to self-assess performance; and to intentionally and effectively educate for the future we want by design. In addition, the Benchmarks embody the consensus that our field needs to demonstrate the impact of EfS and to catalyze wide-spread implementation.
Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit
The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Toolkit can help schools and communities develop a process for creating locally relevant and culturally appropriate education. The ESD Toolkit is an easy-to-use manual for beginning the process of combining education and sustainability. It has eight major components:
- An introduction to sustainability.
- A description of the major thrusts and components of ESD and a method of bringing ESD to the school level.
- A discussion of 12 major issues that have slowed the progress of ESD.
- A case study of the Toronto Board of Education’s community consultation and subsequent curriculum revision that indirectly addressed ESD as a result of the citizens’ visions and desires.
- A description of management techniques for initiating change in schools.
- A brief description of public participation methods for including the citizenry in community decisions regarding sustainability and ESD.
- Exercises to help schools and communities to understand sustainability, create sustainability goals, reorient the curriculum to address sustainability, and initiate change within an educational system.
- Links to other websites on sustainability, education for sustainability, historic United Nations documents, and communities that have developed sustainability plans.
Edutopia’s Culturally Responsive Teaching Resource Library
This resource roundup includes articles and videos to help educators engage students by connecting to and honoring their cultures, experiences, and backgrounds.
Edutopia’s Design Thinking Resource Library
This resource roundup includes videos and articles that will help educators become more familiar with design thinking and how to incorporate the design thinking process into their curriculum.
Edutopia’s Digital Citizenship Resource Library
This resource roundup includes a collection of articles, videos, and other resources on internet safety, cyberbullying, digital responsibility, and media and digital literacy.
Edutopia’s Resources and Downloads for Financial Literacy
Explore resources and downloads for educators seeking to help students learn financial concepts, practice money management, and build strong financial decision-making and economic-reasoning skills.
The Effects of Climate Change on Agricultural Systems
The Effects of Climate Change on Agricultural Systems is a five-hour curriculum unit developed by the United States Department of Agriculture Southwest Regional Climate Hub, in partnership with the Asombro Institute for Science Education. This engaging, fun, and scientifically rigorous education unit is intended to foster climate literacy among sixth- through twelfth-grade students and help them understand how increased temperatures and extreme events can impact crop productivity and food security. The unit consists of five activities that can be conducted in formal and informal settings and are aligned with Common Core Standards and Next Generation Science Standards.
EL Education Models of Excellence
Models of Excellence is a curated, open-source collection of exemplary high-quality PreK-12 student work, along with resources to support the use of student work models to inspire and elevate teaching and learning. The purpose of this site is to catalyze the use of models to help build student skills and dispositions for success in college, careers, and life. The student work found on the site comes from a wide range of preK-12 schools.
The Models of Excellence site is a product of EL Education, a national network of school partners focused on achieving whole school transformation through implementation of 38 core, research-based practices that make up the EL Education model and address every aspect of a school’s instructional program, culture, and leadership.
Engineering Inspired by Nature
Engineering Inspired by Nature is an award-winning, standards-aligned engineering curriculum that teaches students a broad range of engineering topics and skills through a nature-inspired approach. Two versions are available: one for grades 3 – 6 students and one for middle/high school students. The curriculum was developed by the Center for Learning with Nature and is available for free for individual public school teachers.
Developed by a team of University of Texas faculty, NASA engineers, and secondary teachers working with funding from the National Science Foundation, Engineer Your World is an innovative, student-centered curriculum that engages learners in authentic engineering experiences and inspires them to embrace an engineer’s habits of mind. Collaborative, student-directed projects build resilient problem-solving skills and empower students to think like engineers, to adopt engineering processes, and to pursue engineering disciplines for the betterment of our world.
EntreEd, the National Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education, is a leader in making the case for providing entrepreneurship education to young people. The website features a library of teacher classroom resources that introduce students to entrepreneurship, the key competencies and skills needed to start and run a business, and the steps involved in taking ideas from concept to product.
Experiential Tools: Resources for Teaching and Group Facilitation
Experiential Tools was founded by author and educator Jennifer Stanchfield in an effort to provide educators with quality, unique, and user-friendly methods to enhance learning, increase engagement, build community, facilitate group development, and engage learners in meaningful reflection and dialogue. Resources offered include consulting, professional development programs, workshops, books, and teaching and facilitation tools.
Facing the Future is an international program, based out of Western Washington University, creating tools for educators that equip and motivate students to develop critical thinking skills, build global awareness, and engage in positive solutions for a sustainable future. The curriculum is organized around eight sustainability big ideas:
- Connecting with Nature
- Equity and Justice
- Health and Resiliency
- Interconnectedness
- Local to Global
- Peace and Collaboration
- Respect for Limits
- Universal Responsibility
Facing the Future curriculum materials and resources are available for K-12 teachers, teachers in colleges of education, and for some community college and undergraduate classes. All materials are developed for teachers, by teachers, with best teaching and learning practices in mind and are aligned with Common Core Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and most state standards frameworks.
Field Investigations: Using Outdoor Environments to Foster Student Learning of Scientific Practices
Field Investigations: Using Outdoor Environments to Foster Student Learning of Scientific Practices is a framework of scientific practices that scientists use in the field. This guide was developed to help K-12 teachers introduce their students to the methodologies used for scientific field research and guide them through the process of conducting field investigations using these scientific practices. In particular, this guide demonstrates how to use descriptive and comparative methodologies for field studies typically used in the environment and natural resource sectors. The guide has been updated to address how the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards may be used to integrate field investigation scientific practices with real-world content through crosscutting concepts that practicing field scientists and engineers tackle in their role as professionals.
FoodSpan: Teaching the Food System from Farm to Fork
FoodSpan is a free, downloadable high school curriculum that highlights critical issues in the food system; stimulates debate about food system topics related to human health, the environment, equity, and animal welfare; and empowers students to be food citizens. It is aligned to national education standards in science, social studies, health, and family and consumer sciences. This curriculum was developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future as an outgrowth of its work to help build a healthier, more equitable, and more resilient food system.
From Inquiry to Action: Civic Engagement with Project-Based Learning in All Content Areas
From Amazon.com: What really matters to your students? The issues in front of them at school and in life.
When students inquire into those issues and know that their arguments will be read with a skeptical eye next week by the city council or published in the local newspaper, they’re eager to research and find relevant information in nonfiction texts to bolster their claims. They become committed to write, revise, edit, and correct their grammar. They want to think broadly about what reasoning will be effective with their audience.
Want that kind of engagement in your classroom? Whether you teach English, social studies, science, or math, From Inquiry to Action will show you how step-by-step. Its projects for civic-engagement help kids become not only college and career ready but citizen ready. And not ready someday, but right now!
Research, argument, speaking and listening, close reading, writing for real audiences and purposes, and collaboration? It’s all here, growing through projects that give students choice, ownership over their learning, incredible motivation, and a sense of voice and power that only comes from focusing on and applying their learning to real-world situations.
“It’s not enough to just talk about change, or practice in mock legislatures,” writes Steve Zemelman. “When students see adults actually listening to them with respect, that is when they begin to realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world.” Read From Inquiry to Action and find practical guidance that leads students to the heights you dream for them. After all, we all want our students to grow as engaged, thoughtful citizens in our communities.
Fun and Educational Science Apps for Elementary Students
Project Learning Tree pulled together these free science apps for students in grades K-5, focusing on topics such as climate change, trees, conservation, and weather. All apps complement Project Learning Tree’s lesson plans. Apps include stand-alone games, interactive teaching tools, and reference guides.
Future Ready Schools helps K-12 public, private, and charter school leaders plan and implement personalized, research-based digital learning strategies so all students can achieve their full potential. This project was created by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington DC-based national policy and advocacy organization to help school districts develop comprehensive plans to achieve successful student learning outcomes by (1) transforming instructional pedagogy and practice while (2) simultaneously leveraging technology to personalize learning in the classroom.
Future Ready Schools offers the following tools and resources for schools and school leaders:
- Future Ready Framework: This research-based framework emphasizes empowered and innovative leadership and focuses on eight essential components (called gears), while keeping personalized student learning at the center of all decision-making.
- Interactive Planning Dashboard and 5 Step Process: This free online tool is designed to help district leadership teams plan systemically to use technology as a tool to effectively engage students, empower teachers, and improve learning outcomes. Through the dashboard, district leaders assess their district’s needs, identify gaps, obtain strategies, plan, and track their progress over time. The Interactive Planning Dashboard outlines a 5 Step Process – an implementation roadmap – that should take districts between 4-8 weeks to complete. The online planning template and comprehensive set of resources include research-based strategies to help district teams set goals, close the assessed gaps, and ask critical questions.
- Future Ready Hub: The Hub is a one-stop shop for all Future Ready Schools materials, tools, and activities and is a powerful online resource for district leaders. The Future Ready Hub offers school district leaders a variety of ways to share their own expertise and tap into the collective expertise of a broader community of education leaders.
Generation Citizen works to ensure that all U.S. students receive an effective Action Civics education. At the center of Generation Citizen’s work is its Action Civics curriculum and Democracy-led and teacher-led models. The curriculum is action-based, aligned to state standards, and academically rigorous.
Getting Smart on Global Education and Equity
This publication, authored by Getting Smart and VIF International Education, explores the characteristics of globally competent students and addresses how K-12 institutions can utilize global education practices to equitably prepare all students for success.
Getting Smart on Teachers as Collaborative Curriculum Designers
This publication explores Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC), an online set of tools and resources created for educators, by educators after the College and Career Readiness standards were announced. LDC helps teachers not only implement these standards in their classrooms, but also gain valuable professional development time while collaborating with other teachers. As the teachers who implement LDC in this bundle share, they are learning and growing right along with their students as they design their LDC modules.
Launched in 1998, the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) enlists people of all ages in the collection of data on wild birds. The premise behind the count is simple: over four days in February, participants tally the number and kind of birds they observe for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count. Data collected through the GBBC website during the count is used by scientists to get the “big picture” about what is happening to bird populations. Instructions for participating (including how to set up an account), resources, and links for additional citizen science projects can be found on GBBC’s website.
Green Strides Webinar Series Calendar
The Green Strides Webinar Series provides school communities with the tools they need to reduce their schools’ environmental impact and costs; improve health and wellness; and teach effective environmental education. It provides all schools access to the resources that help them move toward the Pillars of the U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools recognition award.
Green Teacher’s Teaching Kids about Climate Change
To help educators tackle this essential but challenging topic with K-8 students, this new book includes 20 age-appropriate activities that can be undertaken at home, in school classrooms, outdoor spaces, and in the community. Within the 80 pages of this large format paperback, you will find many useful pathways to guide young people toward an understanding of this complex topic.
Developed by educators from across North America, the collection includes activities that introduce basic concepts of climate literacy, such as energy forms, urban heat islands, and the difference between weather and climate. Walking school buses, green commuting challenges, and public transit investigations are a few of the transport-related activities. Building model solar cars and solar cookers and studying passive solar house design are a few of the energy-oriented activities included in the book.
Rather than overwhelm young people with the daunting challenges facing humanity, the book’s focus is to help them to appreciate the many solutions that individuals, organizations, and governments are already implementing to mitigate climate change. The overall goal of the book is to introduce basic concepts and to help cultivate a sense of wonder about the natural world.
Green Teacher’s Teaching Teens about Climate Change
Rather than overwhelm teenagers with the daunting challenges facing humanity, the focus of this new book is to help them move from despair to empowerment and appreciate the many solutions that are already being implemented to mitigate climate change. Developed by educators from across North America, this book includes activities that explore basic concepts such as carbon pricing and climate change denial. Car trip reduction plans, bike-a-thons, and public transit investigations are a few of the transport-related activities. How to organize a climate change summit or share local examples of climate change with peers in other regions are two other notable activities found in the book.
In an era where public opinion is shaped by emotional appeals and unsubstantiated personal opinion, never has it been more important to provide teens with opportunities to engage in hands-on, minds-on activities that allow them to explore the complex issue of climate change. The teaching strategies provided in this 80-page, large format paperback will engage students and help them develop the critical thinking skills they will need as citizens of this era.
Growing Nature Literacy in Libraries
This resource, developed in partnership by the National Grid Foundation and the Nature Explorium at Middle Country Public Library in New York state, includes a bibliography of nature-related books for students from kindergarten to fifth-grade.
The Center for Health and the Global Environment’s K-12 Education Program encourages environmental education within the context of global perspectives and human health. On this website, teachers can find lesson plans, videos, multimedia tools, and a wealth of other resources that address topics such as biodiversity and human health; climate, energy, and health; healthy oceans; and healthy and sustainable food. The site also offers professional development opportunities around energy, climate, biodiversity, oceans, food, and health.
Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids Project
The Healthy Neighborhoods/Healthy Kids (HN/HK) Project is a service-learning/civic engagement and project-based learning framework for students designed by Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project in collaboration with Smart Growth Vermont. HN/HK endeavors to engage students in meaningful exploration of their community and to provide teachers, students, and communities with opportunities for student-led community change. By providing structure and support for work deeply rooted student interest and community need, HN/HK is a vital example of education for sustainability, place-based education, and service-learning, as well as a tool for developing students’ literacy, analytical, and communication skills in a relevant way.
iCivics was founded in 2009 by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to reimagine civic education and engage students in meaningful civic learning. The organization’s innovative games and supporting classroom resources and curriculum teach students how the political system works by allowing them to experience it first-hand and empowering them to address real-world issues.
iNaturalist is an online, crowdsourced species identification and recording tool that allows users to record observations, get help with identifications, collaborate with others to collect information for a common purpose, and access observational data collected by iNaturalist users. The tool was developed to connect people with nature while generating scientifically valuable biodiversity data. A teacher’s guide is available to help educators optimize their use of iNaturalist in the classroom, including examples that feature coursework, lesson plans, and protocols.
The Inclusive Schools Network is a web-based educational resource for families, schools, and communities that promotes inclusive educational practices. Its library of resources covers a range of topics on diversity. Categories include inclusion basics, culturally responsive instruction, family involvement, instruction for diverse learners, school climate, and student engagement.
InCtrl is a series of free standards-based lessons that teach key digital citizenship concepts. These lessons, for students in grades 4 – 8, are designed to engage students through inquiry-based activities and collaborative and creative opportunities.
Integrating Sustainability Science into the Classroom
An Arizona State University Professional Development course, Integrating Sustainability Science into the Classroom aims to cultivate the skills and strategies necessary for incorporating sustainability science topics across common K-12 curricula. The goal is to create crosswalk opportunities for making sustainability science relevant in subjects such as English Language Arts, Literacy, History, Social Studies, Science, Art, Drama, and Mathematics. Offered as an introduction into the topic of sustainability, educators will learn about the history of sustainability, what sustainability is, explore sustainability topics, learn how to mobilize the Four Ways of Thinking framework, and how to connect sustainability to their curriculum.
This fully online course takes roughly four to six hours to complete. Course cost is $200.
This educational website is the online version of the Emmy-winning television series, offering free science videos and companion lesson activities for expanded learning in classrooms. Categories include energy science, farm science, environmental science, life science, natural resource science, health science, and physical science.
Introduction to Social Justice
Introduction to Social Justice introduces the notion of social justice and guides teachers in the development of awareness and skills needed to reframe lessons and units to have a social justice lens. This micro-course is a follow up to Susan Santone’s Intro to Sustainability Online Course.
Introduction to Sustainability Online Course
Learning about sustainability is easier than ever thanks to “Introduction to Sustainability,” a free online course developed by Kappa Delta Pi in partnership with Creative Change Educational Solutions. The self-paced course introduces sustainability as a context for learning, highlights connections across grades and disciplines, and provides strategies for reframing curriculum to emphasize these connections. With activities, videos, discussions, off-line projects, and guided curriculum design, the course engages adult learners in an integrative and reflective learning experience that emphasizes practical applications. The course is based upon (and includes excerpts from) Susan Santone’s book, Reframing the Curriculum: Design for Social Justice and Sustainability.
JASON is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1989 by Dr. Robert D. Ballard. JASON provides curriculum and learning experiences in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) for K-12 students, and high-quality professional development for teachers. Each comprehensive JASON Learning curriculum features print and digital materials, hands-on activities, videos and online games for students, as well as lesson plans, implementation tips, professional development, and a powerful digital platform for educators. Live, interactive events throughout the year connect the JASON community with inspirational STEM role models, including renowned scientists and other experts who have pursued STEM careers.
Journey North is a free, Internet-based program that explores the interrelated aspects of seasonal change. Through interrelated investigations, students discover that sunlight drives all living systems and they learn about the dynamic ecosystem that surrounds and connects them. A sampling of projects includes:
- Sunlight and the Seasons: Children study seasonal change in sunlight in a global game of hide and seek called Mystery Class.
- Plants and the Seasons: Children explore tulip growth in their own gardens, running an experiment that tracks the arrival of spring.
- Seasonal Migrations: Children follow animal migrations. They observe, research, and report findings and watch journeys progress on live maps.
Additional instructional materials, activities, and strategies can be found on the Journey North website.
From Amazon.com: Inspire kids to choose the social causes they care about and take action themselves. Compelling, empowering, and packed with information, The Kid’s Guide to Social Action is the ultimate guide for kids who want to make a difference in the world. First published in 1991, this book has helped thousands of young people get involved, get noticed, and get results. It has won awards from Parenting Magazine (“Outstanding Children’s Book, Reading-Magic Awards”) and the American Library Association (“Best of the Best for Children”). And now it’s even better.
- Step-by-step instructions show how to write letters, do interviews, make speeches, take surveys, raise funds, get media coverage, and more.
- Real stories about real kids who are doing great things let readers know they’re not too young to solve problems in their neighborhood, community, and nation.
- 25 reproducible forms make it easy to circulate petitions, initiate proclamations, and prepare news releases.
- Ideas for working with government, including tips for lobbying local, state, and federal lawmakers, and for using social action skills with the courts.
- Resources point the way toward government offices, groups, organizations, Web sites, and books.
Designed for kids to use on their own, this creative book is also ideal for schools, clubs, groups, troops, and youth organizations.
KnowledgeWorks is a national organization committed to providing every learner with meaningful personalized learning experiences that ensure success in college, career, and civic life. Their website offers resources that address personalized learning, competency-based education, school design, policy, and the future of learning.
Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student
From Amazon.com: Educators John Spencer and A.J. Juliani know firsthand the challenges teachers face every day: School can be busy. Materials can be scarce. The creative process can seem confusing. Curriculum requirements can feel limiting. Those challenges too often bully creativity, pushing it to the side as an “enrichment activity” that gets put off or squeezed into the tiniest time block. We can do better. We must do better if we’re going to prepare students for their future.
LAUNCH: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity and Bring Out the Maker in Every Student provides a process that can be incorporated into every class at every grade level … even if you don’t consider yourself a “creative teacher.”
In LAUNCH, teachers will discover practical strategies for using design thinking in the classroom to engage, inspire, and empower students. Here are a few key takeaways:
- Student projects that focus on making, designing, and creating
- Fixing the brainstorming process
- Structuring project-based learning to unleash creativity
- Building creative confidence in the classroom
- Leading a maker movement without spending a lot of money
LEAF, Wisconsin’s K-12 Forestry Education Program, was created in 2001 to promote forestry education in Wisconsin. The program’s forestry education materials are designed with formal and non-formal educators in mind and can be adapted for use by educators outside the state. LEAF’s core curriculum includes interdisciplinary units for teaching students about forests and forestry and each unit includes at least three field enhancements that can be completed in a schoolyard or forest setting. Supplementary lesson guides cover urban forests and wildland fire.
A product of the U.S. Green Building Council’s The Center for Green Schools, Learning Lab provides K-12 teachers and school leaders with comprehensive, project- and STEM-based curriculum that encourages student leadership, environmental literacy, and real-world action.
Discover best-in-class content, training, and tools. Access their curated catalogue of lesson plans, interactive projects, assessment opportunities, and other multimedia resources in English and Spanish. Lessons are mapped to meet current educational standards and were created by educators, for educators.
Leopold Education Project Curriculum
The Leopold Education Project (LEP) curriculum guide contains 20 interdisciplinary lessons in Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, based on the classic essays in A Sand County Almanac. Published in 2016, this guide consolidates the best lessons from the wide array of resources developed for LEP throughout its history. Lessons include background information for instructors and engaging activities that get students outdoors – helping them hone their skills in reading the landscape through observation and hands-on participation. Suggested discussion questions help guide individual and group reflection.
This curriculum guide is designed for use in formal classroom environments and in non-formal outdoor education experiences. Lessons are targeted mainly toward middle school and high school age students.
LinkEngineering is a community of educators interested in providing meaningful engineering experiences to PreK-12 students of all abilities. The website provides background information on engineering and engineering design, as well as examples of engineering in educational settings. It also serves as a forum where educators can connect with others to learn how to effectively implement engineering in PreK-12 settings.
The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) seeks to ensure that every student in America graduates from high school with the literacy skills necessary for success in college and career. LDC is a teacher-created instructional design system that transforms educator practice through the use of online tools and resources that facilitate collaboration, content development, and professional learning to effectively implement College and Career Readiness Standards in K–12 classrooms. The LDC website offers a host of resources, courses, and sample curricula to help teachers and educators integrate effective literacy instruction into their classrooms, content areas, and schools.
Mikva Challenge provides powerful learning opportunities and authentic democratic experiences to help young people become empowered, informed, and active citizens who will promote a just and equitable society. The organization provides teachers, schools, and youth organizations with curricula, strategies, and tools to engage young people in high-quality, student-centered, and project-based learning that activates youth expertise, amplifies youth voice, and engages in deeper learning and reflection.
Monarch Watch is a nonprofit education, conservation, and research program based at the University of Kansas that strives to provide the public with information about the biology of monarch butterflies, their spectacular migration, and how to use monarchs to further science education in primary and secondary schools. The program engages in research on monarch migration biology and monarch population dynamics to better understand how to conserve the monarch migration, as well as promotes the protection of monarch habitats throughout North America. Monarch Watch’s website is a treasure trove for educators looking to participate, including information on creating Monarch Waystations and butterfly gardens, raising Monarchs in the classroom, and tagging Monarchs to track their migration patterns.
This NASA webpage includes a wealth of resources, lesson plans, and teaching materials for K-12 educators to support STEM curriculum.
National Action Civics Collaborative
The National Action Civics Collaborative is a network of practitioners and researchers whose mission is to implement Action Civics in every school and youth organization throughout the country, and to promote an experiential understanding of how government works. The organization’s website features stories of youth participating in Action Civics projects, a toolbox that includes an Action Civics curriculum and evaluation tools, and a research page with resources that make the case for Action Civics.
National Climate Assessment Teaching Resources
The National Climate Assessment offers a wealth of actionable science about the causes, effects, risks, and possible responses to human-caused climate change. This series of guides for educators focuses on the regional chapters of the Assessment Report, helping to unpack the key messages of each region and point to related, high-quality online resources.
National Education Association Resources for Teaching Financial Literacy
This National Education Association webpage includes lesson plans, background resources, and games that educators can use to help students gain the financial literacy skills they need to manage their financial resources throughout their lives.
National Education Association’s Diversity Toolkit
This online toolkit provides an introduction to the multiple facets of diversity. It offers basic information, a short list of strategies and tools, and suggestions for how to find out more. Topics covered include class and income, cultural competence, English Language Learners, gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity, and social justice.
National Energy Education Development (NEED) Project
Over 35 years ago, the NEED Project began as a one-day celebration of energy education when National Energy Education Day was recognized by a Joint Congressional Resolution. Since its founding, NEED has kept its Kids Teaching Kids philosophy as a fundamental principle of NEED programming – encouraging students to explore, experiment, and engage, and encouraging teachers to embrace student leadership in the classroom. NEED trains and assists teachers in harnessing the energy of the classroom – the energy of students.
The NEED Project offers curriculum resources and professional development for educators; energy information and resources, activities, and leadership programming for students; and an annual energy conference (open to students who participate in the Youth Awards Program for Energy Achievement).
National Environmental Education Foundation Animal Migration Activity Guide
Designed for elementary age kids, this activity guide is full of fun ways to learn about animal migrations in the U.S. Activities encourage kids to use STEM skills to explore the topic, whether they are using math to plot the coordinates of monarch migration paths, engineering to design their birdfeeder, science to understand the phenomenon of animal migration, or technology to get involved with online citizen science.
National Environmental Education Foundation Rooted (NEEF) in Math Educator Toolkit
Mathematics allows us to analyze current conditions within an environment, make predictions about future trends, and respond in ways that surpass what is possible through simple observation. When looked at in the context of the other STEM subjects (science, technology, and engineering), mathematics becomes a necessary tool in the practice of these fields, enabling the collection and comparison of scientific data that then informs the technology and engineering design of the future.
NEEF has developed a free toolkit for educators, including lesson plans, activity ideas, and informational resources, to help bridge the gap between mathematics and the natural world.
National Geographic Society Education Resources
The National Geographic Society’s education website holds a treasure trove of resources for K-12 educators. Browse teaching resources that include lessons, activities, educator guides, and games; access map-making resources, such as their MapMaker Interactive online platform and MapMaker Kits; or learn more about the many programs the Society offers from Citizen Science and Explorer Classroom to professional development opportunities.
National Science Foundation Engineering Classroom Resources
This collection of lessons, activities, and web resources curated by the National Science Foundation aims to help educators, students, and students’ families learn more about engineering.
National Science Teachers Association’s (NSTA) Freebies for Science Teachers
NSTA has compiled a list of free, curated resources for science teachers and their classrooms, no membership required! Browse this list for books, websites, videos, lesson plans, and other materials to supplement your study of STEM and environmental topics.
The Natural Inquirer program produces a variety of science education materials for PreK-12. Natural Inquirer products are produced by the Forest Service, the Cradle of Forestry in America Interpretive Association, and other cooperators and partners. Their website includes lesson plans, activities, and resources for teachers as well as games, videos, and activities for kids.
Publications include:
Natural Inquirer, a free science education journal written for middle through high school age students. In 1998, Natural Inquirer was created so that scientists could share their research with students. Each article follows the same format as a scientific journal article by including an Introduction, Methods, Findings, and Discussion section. Additionally, each article has a Meet the Scientist section, Thinking About Science section, Thinking About the Environment section, and a FACTivity. The FACTivity is a hands-on activity that reinforces a concept from the article. All articles are correlated to National Education Standards.
Investi-gator, a free science journal written for upper elementary level students. The journal follows the same format as Natural Inquirer just written at a different level.
The Natural Inquirer Reader series, developed to meet the needs of PreK-2 students. Each Reader focuses on one Forest Service scientist and their research. Readers contain glossaries and activities and are correlated to National Education Standards.
NatureBridge Training and Tools for Teachers
A recognized leader in the field of environmental education, NatureBridge provides hands-on, inquiry-based programs for children and teens at national park locations across the country. The organization’s website includes an educators webpage that offers classroom resources organized around five areas of study; tips and resources for incorporating nature into classroom lessons; and professional development workshops that provide skills to create hands-on science and environmental education curricula for students.
Nature Journaling: A Creative Path to Environmental Literacy
This free, downloadable guide designed for fourth- through eighth-graders will show you how to use nature journaling to spark student curiosity, foster awareness and sensitivity to their surroundings, and develop an empathetic relationship with a place and the other species that inhabit it. Activities in the guide are designed for accessible, everyday settings – the schoolyard, a neighborhood park, and the trails of a local nature center.
Nature’s Notebook – National Phenology Network
Nature’s Notebook is a national, online program of the USA National Phenology Network where amateur and professional naturalists regularly record observations of plants and animals to generate long-term data sets used for scientific discovery and decision-making. Observing phenology through Nature’s Notebook offers place-based, hands-on learning opportunities for K-12 students, promoting cross-subject engagement while addressing learning standards. A number of classroom resources and activities have been developed for K-12 educators to introduce students to phenology and engage them in real-world projects that entail data collection and analysis.
Nature Works Everywhere: Understanding Climate Change and Nature’s Role in Creating Resilience
This six-part high school curriculum immerses students in exploring the causes and effects of global climate change and how climate change affects their regions.
NIEHS Climate Change and Human Health Lesson Plans
This module is intended to promote student discovery and learning about the complex interactions between climate change, the environment, and human health, using content from the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s 2016 report, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment.
NOAA’s Teaching Climate Website
This section of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate.gov website provides a treasure trove of resources for teaching climate and energy.
From Amazon.com: While teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Meira Levinson realized that students’ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their profound marginalization within American society. This is because of a civic empowerment gap that is as shameful and antidemocratic as the academic achievement gap targeted by No Child Left Behind. No Citizen Left Behind argues that students must be taught how to upend and reshape power relationships directly, through political and civic action. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and her own on-the-ground experience, Levinson shows how de facto segregated urban schools can and must be at the center of this struggle.
Recovering the civic purposes of public schools will take more than tweaking the curriculum. Levinson calls on schools to remake civic education. Schools should teach collective action, openly discuss the racialized dimensions of citizenship, and provoke students by engaging their passions against contemporary injustices. Students must also have frequent opportunities to take civic and political action, including within the school itself. To build a truly egalitarian society, we must reject myths of civic sameness and empower all young people to raise their diverse voices. Levinson’s account challenges not just educators but all who care about justice, diversity, or democracy.
Our Climate Our Future, a project of the Alliance for Climate Education, is an award-winning climate education resource for teachers and students, equipped with videos, trivia questions, and lesson plans. Registration is required, however, there is no cost to access materials.
Formerly known as the Buck Institute for Education, PBLWorks offers services, tools, and research that are designed to build the capacity of K-12 teachers to design and facilitate quality project-based learning, and the capacity of school and system leaders to create a culture for teachers to implement great projects with all students.
Placemaking with Children and Youth: Participatory Practices for Planning Sustainable Communities
From Amazon.com: From a history of children’s rights to case studies discussing international initiatives that aim to create child-friendly cities, Placemaking with Children and Youth offers comprehensive guidance in how to engage children and youth in the planning and design of local environments. It explains the importance of children’s active participation in their societies and presents ways to bring all generations together to plan cities with a high quality of life for people of all ages. Not only does it delineate best practices in establishing programs and partnerships, it also provides principles for working ethically with children, youth, and families, paying particular attention to the inclusion of marginalized populations.
Drawing on case studies from around the world―in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, South Africa, and the United States―Placemaking with Children and Youth showcases children’s global participation in community design and illustrates how a variety of methods can be combined in initiatives to achieve meaningful change. The book features more than 200 visuals and detailed, thoughtful guidelines for facilitating a multiplicity of participatory processes that include drawing, photography, interviews, surveys, discussion groups, role playing, mapping, murals, model making, city tours, and much more. Whether seeking information on individual methods and project planning, interpreting and analyzing results, or establishing and evaluating a sustained program, readers can find practical ideas and inspiration from six continents to connect learning to the realities of students’ lives and to create better cities for all ages.
Plum Landing is an environmental science project developed by WGBH Boston that helps children ages 6-9 develop a love for, and connection to, nature and the environment. The Plum Landing website features games, apps, videos, and hands-on science activities for formal and informal educators that align to Next Generation Science Standards.
Preparing Students for a Project-Based World
This white paper, jointly released by Getting Smart and Buck Institute for Education, explores equity, economic realities, student engagement, and instructional and school design in the preparation of all students for college, career, and citizenship. Featuring blogs, podcasts, and videos with students, teachers, and leaders in the United States and internationally, as well as insights from people in the business community, this publication makes the case for high-quality, project-based learning as a way to optimally prepare students for the project-based world they are inheriting.
Preparing Teachers for a Project-Based World
In this white paper, Emily Liebtag and Tom Vander Ark explore how teacher preparation and professional learning can be aligned to – and modeled after – the types of deeper learning environments we seek to create for students. They share a vision for preparation and beginning teacher professional development that embraces the opportunity of personalized project-based learning (PBL) for all students, focusing on what a well-prepared PBL teacher should know and be able to do. Drawing upon the expertise and leadership of PBL educators from across the country, the authors share what an ideal preparation program and early career professional learning for teachers ought to look like if we want to develop high-quality PBL teachers.
Project BudBurst is a citizen science program focused on how plants change with the seasons. Participants in Project BudBurst make careful observations of the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting phases of plants throughout the year. Observations shared with Project BudBurst become part of an ecological record and data is freely available for anyone to download and use. The Project BudBurst website has a number of resources for K-12 educators including classroom guides, activities, and professional development opportunities. Educators can register their classrooms with Project BudBurst so that students can collect and share data with the Project BudBurst community.
Project Citizen is an interdisciplinary, active-learning program that promotes competent and responsible participation in local and state government by engaging students in developing public policy for their communities. The program is aligned with Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies.
Project Lead the Way (PLTW) is a nonprofit organization that provides a transformative learning experience for K-12 students and teachers across the United States. PLTW empowers students to develop and apply in-demand, transportable skills by exploring real-world challenges. Through pathways in computer science, engineering, and biomedical science, students not only learn technical skills, but how to solve problems, think critically and creatively, communicate, and collaborate. PLTW also provide teachers with training, resources, and support they need to engage students in real-world learning.
Project Noah is an award-winning software platform designed to help people reconnect with the natural world through citizen science. This powerful tool provides users of all ages with a simple, easy-to-use way to share their wildlife observations while collecting important ecological data. Educators can choose from dozens of challenging and meaningful investigations, or “missions,” that touch on key concepts in life science or they can create their own place-based mission tailored to their local environment. Teacher-created, teacher-tested resources are also available to help you get started using Project Noah in your classroom.
Project WET’s mission is to reach children, parents, teachers, and community members of the world with water education that promotes awareness of water and empowers community action to solve complex water issues. Project WET:
- Publishes water resource education materials that are appropriate for many different age groups and cultures and offer comprehensive coverage of the broad topic of water.
- Provides training workshops to educators at all levels, formal and non-formal, on diverse water topics so that those educators can reach children with objective, experiential, science-based water education.
- Organizes and inspires community water events, including water festivals and ActionEducation™ projects.
- Builds a worldwide network of educators, water resource professionals, NGOs, water scientists, and other experts to advocate for the role of water education in solving complex water issues.
Reframing the Curriculum: Design for Social Justice and Sustainability
From Routledge: Reframing the Curriculum is a practical, hands-on guide to weaving the concepts of healthy communities, democratic societies, and social justice into academic disciplines. Developed for future and practicing teachers, this volume is perfect for teacher education courses in instructional design, social foundations, and general education, as well as for study in professional learning communities. The author outlines the philosophies, movements, and narratives shaping the future, both in and out of classrooms, and then challenges readers to consider the larger story and respond with curriculum makeovers that engage students in solving problems in their schools, communities, and the larger world. The book’s proven method for designing units gives educators across grades and disciplines the tools to bring sustainability and social justice into experiential, project-based instructional approaches.
Pedagogical features include:
- Specific examples and templates that offer readers a framework for reworking their units and courses while meeting required standards and incorporating innovative classroom practices.
- Activities and discussion questions that bring to life and establish ties with the curriculum.
- eResources, including a facilitator’s guide, offering examples of fully developed units created with this model and an editable template for redesigning existing units.
Scholastic Every Kid in a Park
Scholastic has developed a set of three learning activities to introduce fourth-grade students to our nation’s natural and historical resources: 1) Exploring Federal Lands and Waters; 2) Environmental Stewardship; and 3) Citizen Science. Each learning activity includes lesson plans, activity sheets, and resource sheets. Lessons were developed to complement the Every Kid in a Park Initiative.
Scholastic Multiculturalism and Diversity Resources
This resource collection includes tips, strategies, lesson plan ideas, and ready-to-go activities to help educators engage students and families from diverse backgrounds.
SciStarter is the place to find, join, and contribute to science through more than 1,600 formal and informal research projects, events, and tools. The SciStarter Project Finder is the perfect starting place for educators interested in integrating citizen science into curriculum – there are hundreds of projects suitable for all ages and many include teaching materials. Educators can also find case studies that highlight best practices for conducting citizen science projects in the classroom, as well as links to additional citizen science resources.
Sharing Biomimicry with Young People
This publication was created by the Biomimicry Institute to help K-12 educators establish a general foundation in biomimicry and provide ideas for introducing this way of thinking and problem-solving to their students. It includes an introduction to the “what” and “why” of biomimicry, a section on core concepts, and suggestions and resources for introducing these core concepts to K-12 students. Note: you will need to sign up for a free account with Ask Nature to download this resource.
Siemens STEM Day is a refreshed and expanded version of the beloved Siemens Science Day, now intended to span the whole K-12 STEM experience. Siemens STEM Day offers a variety of tools and resources that will help you reinvent your STEM curriculum, including original hands-on activities for grades K-12 and a teacher support center.
Sierra Club John Muir Lesson Plans
Learning about John Muir’s life can serve as a launching pad to environmental studies from a variety of perspectives. Botany, geology, history, geography, language arts, visual arts, and more can be inspired by John Muir, as we discover that, as John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” These lesson plans are aligned with California Academic Content Standards but can be adapted to meet other state standards as needed.
A program of Solar One, Green Design Lab is a K-12 education program that promotes experiential learning opportunities through science, technology, and design. Solar One’s programs increase environmental knowledge about energy, water, materials science, and food while fostering sustainable behaviors and stewardship. Using the school as a learning laboratory, Solar One’s K-12 programs introduce students to hands-on, real world experiences, support the development of creative thinking and problem-solving skills, and turn students into advocates for sustainability in their schools and communities.
The Green Design Lab program delivers professional development opportunities to teachers; offers a curriculum package centered on the school building as a learning laboratory; and provides resources including videos, worksheets, and a toolkit for educators.
Stanford University: The Science and Policy of Global Climate Change Curriculum Unit
This seven lesson curriculum unit for middle and high school science classrooms addresses the fundamental issues of climate science, impacts of climate change on society and global resources, and mitigation and adaptation strategies. It was jointly developed by the Stanford School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences and the Stanford Teacher Education Program.
STEM-Works is a resource for teachers, mentors, parents, STEM professionals, volunteers, and everyone passionate about getting children eager to learn about science, technology, engineering, and math. The organization’s website features STEM-related activities for a number of topic areas, including space, robotics, energy, and extreme weather; advocacy information and materials; and a page highlighting cool jobs in STEM fields.
This article from the Summer 2018 issue of Green Teacher magazine, discusses how a sustainable arts program can be implemented in three different settings: a traditional inner-city school, a rural school, and a school with limited funding and resources.
This guidebook, a project of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ North American Conservation Education Strategy, demonstrates how to use systems concepts and tools to apply systems thinking to environmental education curricula using lessons from Project WILD, Project WET, and Project Learning Tree for grades 9-12.
Systems Thinking Resources – Linda Booth Sweeney
Linda Booth Sweeney is a systems educator and award-winning author who works with people of all ages to develop systems literacy, or a deeper understanding of living systems. Her website’s “Systems Resource Room” contains a comprehensive listing of books, articles, websites, and curricula focused on various aspects of systems and system design. Resources are broken into categories: Learning About Systems, Working with Systems, Systems and Leadership, Systems Tools, Understanding How Systems Work, Systems Design, and Systems Thinking 4 Kids.
TeachEngineering is a searchable, web-based digital library collection comprised of standards-based engineering curricula for use by K-12 educators to make applied science and math come alive through engineering design in K-12 settings. The TeachEngineering collection provides educators with free access to a growing curricular resource of activities, lessons, units, maker challenges, and sprinkles for use in informal education settings. Every lesson and activity is explicitly aligned to the science and/or math educational standards of the state in which it was first developed and classroom tested, as well as to the Common Core Math, Next-Gen Science, and ITEEA standards, if they apply.
TeacherVision Culture and Diversity Resources
This resource collection offers activities, lesson plans, and printables for teaching students to respect differences among people in their community, promoting tolerance and understanding, and familiarizing students with the history and traditions of different religions and ethnic groups.
Teaching Civic Literacy Projects: Student Engagement with Social Problems, Grades 4 – 12
From Amazon.com: This practical resource shows teachers how to enact robust forms of civic education in today’s schools. Both instructive and thought-provoking, it will inspire teachers to craft curricula addressing a wide range of genuine civic problems such as those related to racial discrimination, environmental damage, and community health. Dividing civic literacy projects into three key phases―problem identification, problem exploration, and action―the author provides concrete examples from upper-elementary, middle, and high school classrooms to illustrate and analyze how each phase can unfold. The projects ultimately provide opportunities for youth to participate in civic life while they develop essential literacy skills associated with reading, writing, and speaking. The final chapter outlines a curriculum design process that will result in coherent and meaningful civic literacy projects driven by clear goals. It includes practical tools, such as a sample unit timeline, an assessment chart, and student worksheets that can be modified for immediate use.
Teaching for Change is a nonprofit that provides teachers with the tools they need to create schools where students learn to read, write, and change the world. The organization’s website features teacher resources, lesson plans, and book recommendations for teaching about race and diversity in the classroom.
A project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance helps teachers and schools educate children and youth to be active participants in a diverse democracy. The organization’s classroom resources page offers free lessons, learning plans, teacher strategies, and film kits that educators can use to explore topics like race and ethnicity, gender equality, and sexual orientation with students.
Teenage Citizens: The Political Theories of the Young
From Amazon.com: Most teenagers are too young to vote and are off the radar of political scientists. Teenage Citizens looks beyond the electoral game to consider the question of how this overlooked segment of our citizenry understands political topics. Bridging psychology and political science, Constance Flanagan argues that civic identities form during adolescence and are rooted in teens’ everyday lives―in their experiences as members of schools and community-based organizations and in their exercise of voice, collective action, and responsibility in those settings. This is the phase of life when political ideas are born.
Through voices from a wide range of social classes and ethnic backgrounds in the United States and five other countries, we learn how teenagers form ideas about democracy, inequality, laws, ethnic identity, the social contract, and the ties that bind members of a polity together. Flanagan’s twenty-five years of research show how teens’ personal and family values accord with their political views. When their families emphasize social responsibility―for people in need and for the common good―and perform service to the community, teens’ ideas about democracy and the social contract highlight principles of tolerance, social inclusion, and equality. When families discount social responsibility relative to other values, teens’ ideas about democracy focus on their rights as individuals.
At a time when opportunities for youth are shrinking, Constance Flanagan helps us understand how young people come to envisage the world of politics and civic engagement, and how their own political identities take form.
Think Earth Environmental Education Foundation
Think Earth is a nonprofit dedicated to helping communities create and maintain a sustainable environment through education. The organization developed one of the nation’s most far-reaching environmental education programs—The Think Earth Environmental Education Curriculum for kindergarten through middle school students. The complete Think Earth Curriculum—nine units from preschool to middle school—has been used since the 1990s to teach students about the importance of a clean, healthy environment and about what they can do to conserve natural resources, reduce waste, and minimize pollution. Most curriculum units are now available to download free from the website.
ThinkWater is a national campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help people of all backgrounds and ages think and care deeply about water. It does so by applying systems thinking to existing water education and research efforts and by actively engaging people in a new way around water issues. Resources for educators include videos, infographics, and lesson plans.
Toward a Sustainable Agriculture Curriculum
The University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Center for Integrated Agriculture Systems developed a free curriculum called Toward a Sustainable Agriculture that addresses the social, environmental, and economic impacts of agriculture. The curriculum, which includes five modules, provides a critical analysis of agricultural and food systems and helps students understand new concepts through hands-on examples.
TryEngineering aims to empower educators to foster the next generation of technology innovators. This initiative from IEEE provides educators and students with resources, lesson plans, and activities that engage, inspire, and foster interest in engineering and technology careers.
A project of Earth Island Institute, Ultimate Civics has developed curriculum and resources for grades 6 – 12 that teach foundational civics concepts and skills and empower students to take action. All lessons are aligned to the C3 (College, Career, and Civic Life) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.
Understanding Food and Climate Change: An Interactive Guide
The Center for Ecoliteracy’s Understanding Food and Climate Change: An Interactive Guide uses text, video, photography, and interactive experiences to help educators, students, and advocates learn how food and climate interact and how personal choices can make a difference. Ideal for grades 6-12 and general audiences and connected to Next Generation Science Standards and the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies themes, the guide offers activities for student research and provides extensive resources for further investigation.
Understanding Food and Climate Change: A Systems Perspective
The Center for Ecoliteracy’s Understanding Food and Climate Change: A Systems Perspective explores the links between food systems and our changing climate with an emphasis on systems thinking. A systems approach helps to illuminate how seemingly disconnected phenomena are often dynamically linked and can be understood best when viewed in a larger context. This collection of essays contains an extensive bibliography that provides resources for further investigation. Available as a free iBook for Mac and iPad users. A web version is also available for all computers and tablets.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by world leaders in September 2015. The SDGs, also known as the Global Goals, build on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and are intended to bring an end to poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. Each goal has specific targets to be achieved over the next 15 years. On this website, you can learn more about each goal and what actions you can take in your everyday life to contribute to a sustainable future.
For resources, lesson plans, and global projects aligned to the SDGs, visit TeachSDGs.
VentureLab is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating the next generation of innovators and change makers through entrepreneurial learning. Their website offers free curriculum resources as well as information about professional development opportunities and custom curriculum development.
Waters Foundation: Systems Thinking in Education
The Waters Foundation’s Systems Thinking in Schools work is recognized worldwide for making systems thinking accessible and practical, both for children in classrooms as well as executives in boardrooms. With its mission to build systems thinking capacity in schools throughout the United States and around the world, the Waters Foundation focuses on developing generations of systems thinkers who apply 21st century skills in classrooms, schools, communities, and future workplaces. The Foundation’s website includes a searchable database of resources for educators; access to free, online learning modules and webinars; and professional development opportunities, including the annual Systems Thinking Institute.
WeExplore is an adventure learning environment that provides learners with the opportunity to become explorers pursuing answers to their own questions and share their findings with the world. This free, custom-designed environment allows learners and educators to:
- Engage in technology-enhanced, experiential, inquiry-based learning
- Enhance critical thinking, design, creativity, and problem-solving skills
- Approach learning from a multidisciplinary perspective, helping gain an understanding of the complexity of real-world issues
- Employ 21st century skills and learn new technologies
- Contribute to world knowledge about contemporary issues through a local lens
The WeExplore environment can be used in both formal and informal learning settings. Tutorials and project examples can be accessed on the website. You can also view and learn about current and past expeditions conducted by students from all over the world.
What Kids Can Do (WKCD) champions student voice by documenting and sharing stories of youth who are actively engaged in promoting and creating change. WKCD’s website is a repository of feature stories, special collections, videos, and other resources that demonstrate the impact of, and provide guidance for nurturing, student voice.
The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries
From Amazon.com: How can we create a just, healthy, and humane world? What is the path to developing sustainable energy, food, transportation, production, construction, and other systems? What’s the best strategy to end poverty and ensure that everyone has equal rights? How can we slow the rate of extinction and restore ecosystems? How can we learn to resolve conflicts without violence and treat other people and nonhuman animals with respect and compassion?
The answer to all these questions lies with one underlying system―schooling. To create a more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world, we must reimagine education and prepare a generation to be solutionaries―young people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to create a better future. This book describes how we can (and must) transform education and teaching; create such a generation; and build such a future.
The World’s Largest Lesson was developed by Project Everyone to introduce the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development to children and young people and unite them in action to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change. Visit the website to learn more about this project, find resources and lesson plans for each of the 17 goals, and to learn how you can join this global effort.
This K-12 Guide is just one of several resources offered by Minnesota Project WET, which trains classroom and other educators in hands-on, interactive lessons that are focused on water and encourage critical thinking. The guide features more than 70 pages of background material followed by more than 40 activities. Every page is thoughtfully laid out with core text, photographs, sidebars, maps, and illustrations to make information clear and quick to use. Activities are organized into five sections: wetland definitions, wetlands plants and animals, water quality and supply issues, soils, and people. The appendix offers instructions for planning and developing a schoolyard wetland habitat. Learn more about Minnesota Project WET, as well as the national Project WET Foundation.
Write the World helps students develop the writing strategies and communication tools essential for success in school, career, and life. Through resources such as writing prompts, competitions, and an online journal, young writers are empowered to develop their voices, refine their editing skills, and publish on an international platform. Educators can find tools and resources to help them create vibrant writing communities in their classrooms.
The Young Voices for the Planet film series empowers youth through uplifting and inspiring success stories to play a role in speaking out, creating solutions, and catalyzing change in their communities and society-at-large. Besides student films, the website features a civic engagement curriculum guide that educators can use to integrate Young Voices for the Planet films into their classroom lessons.
YPAR (Youth-led Participatory Action Research) is an innovative approach to positive youth and community development based in social justice principles in which young people are trained to conduct systematic research to improve their lives, their communities, and the institutions intended to serve them. YPAR Hub started through an ongoing partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco Peer Resources and serves as a hub for curriculum and collaboration. Educators can find guidance and lesson plans for integrating YPAR into their curriculum.
Other Resources
K-8 Wisconsin Topic Map
North Carolina Environmental Literacy Plan
PLT Green Schools Audit Leader Guide
NAAEE Learner Guidelines
Kinder Curriculum Map
Middle School Story of Food Nourish Curriculum Guide
Greenhearth Grades 6-8 Environmenta Solutions
Greenearth Primary Grades Bonding With Nature
Greenearth Grades 4-5 Ecological Principles
Curriculum Topic Map