CELF Summer Institute: Education for Sustainability

2012 Registration open now - Early registration rate until April 1st

New York Summer Institute: July 16-18/19 at Manhattanville College (Purchase, NY)

3-day Summer Institute, with optional 4th day for further curriculum development and break-out sessions. Learn more.

Introduce Education for Sustainability (EfS) to your classroom - any classroom, any subject!

WHY?

• EfS prepares students for the challenges of the 21^st Century by employing inquiry-based, student-centered teaching methods that help students grow as critical thinkers and engaged citizens.
• Students who experience education for sustainability by means of place- and problem-based learning show improved achievement in all academic areas.
• Teachers who learn techniques and standards of sustainability education are immediately more relevant and compelling educators, no matter what subject area or age group they teach.

HOW?

CELF’s Summer Institute (program locations in both New York and Boston) will enable teachers to integrate the concepts of sustainability into their existing curricula. This program equips K-12 teachers with practices and teaching methods to address the core concepts of EfS – the intersection of social, economic, and ecological systems.

Teachers participate in the CELF Summer Institute in order to:

• Become familiar with teaching strategies that challenge students to embrace complex problem solving, encourage students to transfer and relate information between disciplines through hands-on and collaborative activities, compel students to connect to their community – at home, in school, and in the world beyond, and inspire them to make a difference.
• Explore effective and engaging methods of communicating the interconnections between a healthy environment, a vibrant economy and fair and equitable social sector – and how the balance of those three systems is vital to a sustainable future, and relevant to every academic subject area.

At the Summer Institute, participants will:

• Experience key concepts first-hand through compelling activities.
• Discover how those concepts (systems thinking, ecological economics, interdependence, product lifecycle analysis, social equity and many others) can be used as teaching tools.
• Redesign a curriculum unit or scope and sequence using sustainability as an integrating context for content and standards.
• Learn how teachers and schools have successfully implemented EfS standards into existing curriculum. (See examples here.)

Attending the CELF Summer Institute had a profound impact on my teaching. I walked away with many practical tools to use in my classroom instruction. By really deepening my understanding of the importance of Sustainability Education, I was able to unfold this philosophy in little ways throughout the school year. Teaching students that what they do now will affect them later was a big concept for young learners.... I cannot see myself teaching without the tools and philosophy that I secured through a CELF Summer Institute. Hands-down it was the best continuing education credit that I have earned in my years as a classroom teacher.
~Trish Zarro, Springhurst Elementary School, Dobbs Ferry, NY