Annual Summer Institute

Summer Institute Reimagined: Civic Science: Inquiry to Action

This program has passed or is no longer active.

THEME: Civic Science: Inquiry to Action

Institute Overview: This 6-day (15 hour) online institute will enhance participants’ understanding of project-based learning and place-based education, principles and practices within the context of your school community modeling CELF’s Inquiry to Action Framework.

Audience: Teachers of Grades 5 – 12 (science, STEAM, health, social studies, civics)

Full Group Virtual Learning and Facilitated Lesson Planning: Follow the process of Inquiry to Action to develop your own project implementation planner to bring into your classroom or virtual experience for your students.

Daily Schedule & Themes
July 21—Inquiry and Place
July 22—Data Collection and Analysis
July 23—Collaboration and Innovation
July 28—Empowering Student Action
July 29—Environmental Health and Community Science
July 30—Environmental Justice

Topics & Keynotes

Jaime González, M.Ed.Guest Speaker

Luz GuelGuest Speaker

Tammie Lang Campbell, Ed.DKeynote Speaker

Shar-Day CampbellKeynote speaker

Environmental Justice and Youth Advocacy: Lynne Cherry with Jaysa Hunter-Mellers

Lynne Cherry, Author and Founder of Young Voices for the Planet, with youth ambassador Jaysa Hunter-Meller. Lynne will share strategies and impact from Young Voices for the Planet, which builds student voice and authentic role in climate change action through civics education. Jaysa will share how words have power when kids fight for climate justice.

A Big History of Your Place: Jaime González, M.Ed.

Jaime González, M.Ed., Houston Healthy Cities Program Director, The Nature Conservancy in Texas. Jaime’s work in Houston prioritizes building partnerships, designing and managing projects, and assisting communities and other organizations to help make Houston a more healthy, resilient, physically cooler, better-connected, and biologically diverse city. Jaime is one of more than 20 Nature Conservancy city leads using nature-based solutions to Build Healthier Cities throughout North America and the world.

Environmental Health: Dr. Maida P. Galvez & Luz Guel

A practicing Pediatrician in New York, NY. Dr. Galvez directs Mount Sinai’s Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit and practices General Pediatrics. She is Co-Principal Investigator and a designated New Investigator of an NIEHS and EPA funded research project entitled “Growing Up Healthy in East Harlem.

Luz Guel, Project Coordinator, Community Engagement Core, The Transdisciplinary Center on Early Environmental Exposures, Department of Population Health Science and Policy Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Luz will share robust data and resources used by Mount Sinai’s program to help schools and communities better understand and study the connections between air quality, human health, impacts on learning and actions we can all take for environmental health and equity.

Less Talk, Better Data, More Action: Tyler Knowlton and David MacLean

Air Quality Data Collection, Analysis and Air Champions Program: Tyler Knowlton, Director of Communications, Plume Labs, and David MacLean, Founder & President, McMac Cx, will share an interactive overview of the portable Flow Air Quality Monitor device, crowd sourcing applications, and interdisciplinary project-based learning through the Air Champions Program.

Director of Communications for Plume Labs, Tyler Knowlton leads the company’s strategic communications and community engagement efforts. He has worked on international, national and local campaigns and projects—from leading Canada’s digital engagement strategy for the country’s 2010 presidency of the G8 and G20 summits and working as the chief strategist on digital innovation at Canada’s department of Global Affairs, to leading province-wide public engagement commissions on rural and urban economic development in his role as chief public engagement strategist for the Canadian province of Nova Scotia (2014).

David MacLean is the Founder and President of McMac Cx, LLC., a Social Enterprise that leverages Social Tech to construct pathways to healthy Communities where Businesses prosper, Humans thrive and Nature flourishes. David connects at the grassroots level, founding the Air Champions – Social Change Scientists initiative and School IAQ Partner Program. David’s mission is to knock down all barriers preventing equal access for everyone to live, learn, work, and play in places that are healthy, safe, efficient, and prosperous.

Getting Out Beyond the Classroom, Partnering to Supplement Curriculum: Shar-Day Campbell and Tammie Lang Campbell, Ed.D

Tammie Lang Campbell is a revered activist who made a quantum leap from rural Mississippi to become a nationally recognized civil rights leader and founder of the Honey Brown Hope Foundation. The Campbells will share best practices for strengthening advocacy by strategically partnering with organizations that help diverse student bodies see themselves in environmental stewardship work.

Shar-Day Campbell is an award-winning communicator and certified social media expert whose gift for storytelling led her to a career in communications, television, digital media and student engagement. She serves as volunteer Communications Director for the Honey Brown Hope Foundation, an award-winning, nationally recognized 501C3 nonprofit founded by her mother, Tammie Lang Campbell. The organization transforms communities through the advancement of civil rights advocacy, diversity appreciation and environmental stewardship.

A Breath of Fresh Air: Investigation and Activism at The Chapin School

This presentation will spotlight the fifth grade students at The Chapin School engaged in project-based learning to gain an understanding about the air quality in their community. As they learned about and measured air quality parameters, students were inspired to take action to improve the air both at school and across the boroughs of New York City.

Anna Mello earned her Bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in education from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and her Master’s degree in ecology from the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis, Brazil. She has been an educator for 12 years, starting her career as a teacher at the Cloud Forest School in Monteverde, Costa Rica as the middle and high school science teacher, where she developed reforestation and conservation projects along with her students. She also worked at the International School of Florianópolis, Brazil as a middle school science teacher. As a graduate student, she worked as an assistant teacher at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, collaborating with the engineering and automation departments with a focus on the conservation of natural resources. Over the past ten years, Anna worked as a translator and editor of scientific articles for various chemistry, ecology and biology journals. She currently works at Chapin, where she teaches Class 5 Science and is on the sustainability committee.

Plus K-12 EfS Case Studies shared by CELF Master Teachers with student action projects and applications to teaching and learning in a broad range of contexts.

Program Highlights

Self- Paced activities accessible through (presented as a Tool Kit) will include:

Flipgrid introductions & pre reading assignments
Mapping place and your community
Completion of the Inquiry to Action framework
CELF facilitated project planning work time

“FLOW” Portable Air Quality Monitoring Device
Through our partnership with Air Champions – Social Change Scientists (ACSCS) – powered by McMac Cx and Plume Labs – we are able to offer every attendee their own portable “FLOW” Air Quality Monitoring Device.

Takeaways:

Complete a place-based/project-based lesson or unit using a local civic science topic such as air quality, water quality, pollinators, or soil quality.
Learn about a variety of data collection methods, crowdsourcing tools and monitoring technology and how to use them with your students
Design a plan to empower student action at your school
Increase knowledge of project-based learning through Civic Science
Increase student advocacy for healthy neighborhoods

Annual Summer Institute

Summer Institute Reimagined: Civic Science: Inquiry to Action

THEME: Civic Science: Inquiry to Action

Topics & Keynotes

Program Highlights

About CELF’s Civic Science: Inquiry to Action Framework

Straight from the Source: Teacher Takeaways from Our Summer Institutes

Many Thanks to our Summer Institute Supporters