Summer Institute for Middle and High School Teachers and Curriculum Coordinators

July 12-16, 2010 at Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY

REGISTRATION DEADLINE: JULY 2nd

At the CELF Summer Institute, teachers and administrators learn how to give students the knowledge and skills to develop an environmentally healthy, economically sound and socially just world. Participants focus on integrating sustainability content and pedagogical principles into standards-based curriculum. We explore strategies that make sustainability learning real, relevant, engaging and inspiring.

Eligible for in-service credits, or graduate credits from our partner, the Manhattanville College School of Education.

Connect Core Concepts and Your Curriculum

At the CELF Summer Institute, you can:

• Gain a greater understanding of the global issues affecting our planet, including social, environmental and economic factors.
• Learn about foundation concepts including systems, interdependence, the commons and community.
• Use the ecological footprint as a framework for understanding sustainability content, developing critical thinking skills and engaging students by measuring environmental and social impacts individually and globally.
• Deepen your knowledge in specific content areas in guided grade-level break-out sessions on topics like:
  • Renewable energy
  • Water resources
  • Population
  • Green building and design
  • Preparing students for the green workforce
  • Ecological economics and economic worldviews
  • The emerging green economy
  • Green mapping (GIS technology and sustainability)
• Develop a curriculum makeover, independently or in grade-level groups, with expert guidance. Spend two days redesigning a curriculum unit specific to your needs so that it includes sustainability education. Receive individualized instruction in computer labs. Get answers and feedback from presenters, who will also share lesson plans and curricular materials for out-of-the-box use.
• Engage in carefully-crafted learning activities that enable teachers to experience key concepts as learners, and that model methods they can use with their students.
• Receive field-tested exemplar lesson materials with readings, directions and essential content.

Meet Specific Learning Objectives

After completing the Institute, participants will be able to:

• Understand the terminology and methodology of the ecological footprint
• Understand product life cycle analysis, the concept of the “commons” and how related “big ideas” can be used as teaching tools
• Apply systems thinking to pedagogy and curriculum
• Identify access points for sustainability within existing curriculum
• Create unit “make-overs” through the lens of sustainability

Get Ongoing CELF Support.  

Once the Institute is over, all participants can get ongoing support and feedback. Every Summer Institute participant is automatically registered for access to our curriculum partner’s nationally-recognized online Curriculum and Resource Center.

Program Highlights  Simulated campus Ecological Footprinting audit Tour of environmental classroom on the Manhattanville campus—a LEED-certified structure—and the adjacent “living machine” for authentic learning on the topic of green building Break-out session presenters Scott Beall, Director, Do Right Inc. Deb Johnson, Academic Director of Sustainability at Pratt Institute Susan Santone, Executive Director, Creative Change Educational Solutions Donna M. Maiello, ASLA and Matthew N. Steinberg, AICP, Divney Tung Schwalbe Organic breakfast daily, plus a specially catered lunch on the closing day