Teaching for a Positive Future
Sustainability Education Summer Institute 2009
Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction/Puget
Sound Energy
http://www.k12.wa.us/
Gilda Wheeler/Dave Reid
The Sustainable Design Project: A Statewide School Community Partnership
In this interactive workshop we will focus on how Education for Sustainability serves as a conceptual framework for effective teaching and learning and how it can be a catalyst for student engagement and achievement. Participants will learn about the Sustainable Design Project, a public-private partnership to serve the needs of K-12 students through integrated project-based learning. Students, together with community partners, study systems and their interconnectedness and design sustainable solutions to real-world challenges and showcase those designs through online and in-person formats. We will provide teaching resources and project examples that teachers, schools, or districts can use to participate in the Sustainable Design Project, including connections to related programs such as Puget Sound Energy’s Cool School Challenge.
Greg Williamson/Carole Layton
Coordinated School Health: A vehicle for youth-driven school sustainability
What if students were working with us to create the sustainable school communities we need? Hear from the students themselves about efforts underway in one Washington high school, and the larger implications of their work. Coordinated School Health provides a systemic framework to build sustainability by bringing together diverse perspectives that improve school and community health. Recent research shows that students with specific health behaviors are also at-risk academically, and that schools can intervene to improve student health behaviors. When students are given transparent information about the decisions that affect their learning, they can become involved in the solutions.
Greg Williamson/Sarah Butzine
Group harvest – Planting the Seeds of Sustainability
Together, we will make meaning, harvest our “key learnings,” and prepare to return to our own communities. This closing conversation will build on what you’ve brought with you, what you’ve found at Islandwood, and send you off with a renewed sense of purpose and of “what is possible.” Be prepared to talk about who inspires you, and learn how you inspire others.
