We spend ninety percent of our lives indoors in environments where we live, learn, and work. In some countries, that number is even higher due to extreme climate and outdoor pollution. If we spend ninety percent of our time indoors, that means that by the time our...
Leadership for Green Schools: Sustainability for Our Children, Our Communities, and Our Planet – This is a wonderfully rich book that uncovers the many facets of what it means to be a green school, and the leadership tools needed to embrace whole school...
What does it mean to be healthy at school? There’s the physical space to consider – ensuring school buildings are clean, safe, and conducive to learning and teaching – as well as occupant health and well-being. However, in the context of a global pandemic and a racial...
With so many questions around the future of learning and education, it is certainly a challenging time. But I do feel this is also an unprecedented moment full of potential should we wish to take it. With bold leadership I think we have an opportunity to shift away...
With a return to school becoming a reality for many, and with so many questions around the future of education, where does one turn to for leadership?It’s unlikely any one person has the answers, and nor could they. This time is unprecedented. And although...
A movement cannot rely on just one person or organization to grow and create change in the world. It requires many helping hands, working together, lifting each other up. At the Green Schools National Network (GSNN), nurturing long-lasting, meaningful partnerships...
With many resources available offering recommendations and options for a safe return to school and how to implement physical distancing, it seems a great time to have a conversation about what ‘A Return To Learning’ could look like. One with a greater focus on the...
A traditional education is not suitable for every student. Malcolm Drips, a precocious nine-year-old of mixed racial heritage, is one of those students. At 18 months of age, he was diagnosed with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For him, the...
As schools reopen amidst COVID-19 and the chronic pandemic of white supremacy, the need to do so with equity at the forefront is greater now than ever before. The student–teacher relationship has transformed over the past year as educators upskilled to teach virtually...
On one level, the “Spidey Senser” project is about engaging the public in science. Community members, young and old, seek out, monitor, and then harvest the filter-like webs of funnel weaver spiders, bagging and labeling them before sending them off to be...
COVID-19 has directly impacted students through widespread school closures, loss of learning, and widening disparities. It has also had consequential indirect impacts on students. A troubling rise in child neglect (Thomas et al., 2020), stress related to food...
It happened in the blink of an eye. One day, schools were packed with kids shuffling down hallways between classes, teachers chasing down homework assignments, and administrators fielding parent requests and student events. Then everything changed. The halls were...
COVID-19 has changed our world in many ways. How we shop, work, govern, and attend school have all been altered due to this global pandemic. Education has been hit particularly hard. Closing out the 2019 – 2020 school year was a chaotic and disjointed effort for most...
Our world is in crisis: a global pandemic, economic inequality, racial disparities, and…climate change. Although climate change may not move as fast as COVID-19 or have immediate consequences, it too threatens human lives and the global economy in real and dramatic...
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a time of reckoning for our country’s institutions, including schools. Our response to this crisis must include bold, new ideas for what schools should look like and prioritize. Now more than ever, schools must focus on...
‘What Does It Mean To Be A Citizen In The 21st Century? – Fostering Civic Engagement Among Youth in K-12 Schools’. “[T]he young are idealistic, have an underdeveloped sense of their own mortality, and are afflicted with an exaggerated thirst...
I first fell in love with biomimicry while attending a county-wide science leadership meeting in February 2017. I was there in my capacity as science department chair at Oak Park High School in California’s Oak Park Unified School District. It was toward the end of...
This brief essay isn’t intended to reiterate the long history of design thinking as best expressed by the brilliant David Kelley, founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school, as there are numerous resources readily available for educators. Instead, it’s meant to...
As the green schools movement develops and gains notice, defining what is considered the third pillar of a green school (U.S. DOE, 2017), environmental and sustainability literacy, has gained steam in conversations at school board meetings, state departments of...
Envision a sustainable future marked by ecological integrity, shared prosperity, and social equity where individual and group choices are rooted in environmental and social responsibility (NAAEE, n.d.-a). Imagine a future where current environmental challenges –...
Sprig, the last classroom table you’ll ever need
