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Kung pao quesadillas and spaghetti tacos are just two of the creative and popular dishes on the menu in Clovis, California schools. In a new essay, CEL communications coordinator Alice Lee Tebo tells how California Endowment "Health Happens Hero" Robert Schram was inspired by our cookbook and professional development guide, Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools. The result: an "entertaining, movable, and alive" menu featuring locally grown foods in healthy dishes that appeal to an ethnically diverse student populace.

In a new essay, CEL communications coordinator Alice Lee Tebo describes a flourishing school garden movement in Hawai'i that is responding to simultaneous growth in the state of food insecurity, obesity, and diet-related illness. The Center for Ecoliteracy has supported this movement by partnering with the Kohala Center to offer a statewide conference and providing resources and assistance to help realize the ambitious goal of "A Garden in Every School, A Garden Teacher in Every Garden, and A Fully Integrated Curriculum."

In October, Center creative director Karen Brown's plenary talk "Revolutionizing Kˆ12 Education with Sustainability in Mind" was enthusiastically received by a live audience of 3,000 at the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael, California and by video Beaming Bioneers gatherings across North America. Her presentation is now available on the Center's YouTube channel.

"Cutting one tree is never about just cutting one tree," writes Frances Moore Lappé. In this excerpt from her latest book, EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want (Nation Books, 2011), she argues that thinking like an ecosystem - attending carefully to patterns of interconnection, change, and context - is necessary in order to answer the question, "What conditions enhance life?" What is good in one context may bring disaster in another, she demonstrates, and what might be perceived as a single change in one community can profoundly change the lives of people around the planet. Lappé is the author of 17 other books, including Diet for a Small Planet, and cofounder of several noteworthy organizations, including Food First and the Small Planet Institute.

Celebrate National School Lunch Week by supporting your school's nutrition services program and promoting healthy, seasonal, regional offerings in the 5.2 billion school lunches served annually in the United States. Try a seasonal recipe from the Center for Ecoliteracy's free downloadable Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools; how about ham and yam pizza or rice noodles with bok choy? Recipes, written in family-sized quantities, will be scaled up for school meals, and can be adapted for your region.

The Center for Ecoliteracy has been a core grantee of the Small Planet Fund, which was founded in 2001 by author-activists Frances Moore Lappé and Anna Lappé to support citizen-led solutions to the root causes of hunger and poverty. The Fund celebrates its anniversary at a September 22 event in New York City, featuring a dialogue between Frances Moore Lappé and Vandana Shiva. The event is free and open to the public; reservations are required.

Join CEL in supporting Food Day, a project organized by the Center for Science in the Public Interest to inspire events across the country that promote safe, healthy food; support sustainable farming; expand access to food and alleviate hunger; protect the environment and animals; and curb junk-food marketing to children.

Creative director Karen Brown takes center stage for a Bioneers Conference plenary address, "Revolutionizing K-12 Education with Sustainability in Mind," on October 14 in San Rafael. That afternoon, the Center for Ecoliteracy and Nourish/WorldLink offer "Teaching Sustainable Living through Food," an interactive dialogue and presentation of resources. 20%-off rates are available for Bioneers Conference registration through the Center for Ecoliteracy website.

Karen Brown will speak on "Help Wanted: 50,000,000 New Farmers" at the inaugural National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa, California on September 13-15, 2011. The exposition, which calls itself the "World's Fair" of the heirloom industry, is a not-for-profit event which will donate funds it raises to school gardens and food programs.


In April, the David Brower Center, the Center for Ecoliteracy's home in downtown Berkeley, was awarded a LEED Platinum rating, the highest possible rating from the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program. The LEED rating system evaluates projects according to their design, construction, and performance in a range of areas including site sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.

Copies of the PBS food literacy documentary Nourish and the companion Middle School Curriculum Guide developed by the Center for Ecoliteracy are available free of charge to K-12 educators in California. Narrated by Cameron Diaz, Nourish features Michael Pollan, Jamie Oliver, Anna Lappé, and others. The beautifully designed curriculum includes a viewing guide, learning activities, action projects, handouts, and bibliography. Organized around big ideas, it is appropriate for social studies, science, health, and English classes.

Center cofounder and board president Fritjof Capra is writing The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision with Pier Luigi Luisi, professor of biology at the University of Rome. The interdisciplinary text, to be published by Cambridge University Press, will integrate the ideas, models, and theories of the new scientific understanding of life into a single framework and discuss its philosophical, social, and political implications.

The latest book from Center consultant and noted cookbook author Georgeanne Brennan, Williams-Sonoma Cheese: The Definitive Guide to Cooking with Cheese, was published March 1 by Weldon Owen. Brennan and Ann M. Evans are currently writing Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools, a Center for Ecoliteracy cookbook and guide to incorporating more fresh, seasonal fruits and vegetables and whole grains in school meals.

Center for Ecoliteracy executive director Zenobia Barlow is featured in Lunch Love Community, a documentary project about the Berkeley School Lunch Initiative, in which the Center played a central role. This series of "bite-sized" films demonstrate how committed community members can create systemic change around school food. On February 13 at 2:30 p.m., the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley presents a premiere screening and conversation with some of the activists portrayed in the films.

The Center has been commissioned to develop an educator's guide for college and community audiences for director Tiffany Shlain's new feature film Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death, and Technology. The film, which premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, takes viewers on a personal journey through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress, and morality at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The guide will challenge viewers to delve deeper into the film's themes, with thought-provoking discussion questions and ideas for further reflection.

How to create a truly meaningful twenty-first-century education? One Oakland school, which had already tackled diversity, globalism, and sustainability, recently combined all three in new "mission integration" projects throughout the curriculum - with inspiring results.

The Center is accepting applications for a new seminar, "Smart by Nature: Making Learning Connections between the Classroom, Lunchroom, and Garden," June 21-23, 2011 at the David Brower Center in Berkeley. The seminar convenes teams from schools and districts and leaders in the field to explore a range of topics, including hands-on curricula, research on learning and nutrition, and successful strategies for improving school food, in order to develop concrete plans for their schools.

What does sustainable living require? How about a way of thinking that "honors and respects the unity of all life, recognizes the fundamental interdependence of all natural phenomena, and reconnects us with the living Earth"? That's the breakthrough Leonardo do Vinci made 500 years ago. In this essay based on lectures at the Center's "Sustainability Education: Connecting Art, Science, and Design" seminar, Fritjof Capra shows why Leonardo's union of art and science remains so relevant (and radical) today.

The Center for Ecoliteracy announces a viewing guide and middle-school curriculum guide for the WorldLink film "Nourish: Food + Community" to help students understand the effect of food choices on people and the environment. The downloadable guides are correlated with national curriculum standards.

We celebrate National School Lunch Week with a thorough revision of our acclaimed Rethinking School Lunch Guide. Visually striking and accessible, it includes some of the best current thinking about changing school food; improving nutrition education; and exploring food, health, culture, and the environment.

The Center for Ecoliteracy and the Oakland (California) Unified School District will apply our Rethinking School Lunch planning framework in a feasibility study directed at transforming food in OUSD schools. Superintendent Tony Smith describes food reform as "part of the basic work we have to do in order to correct systemic injustice, pursue equity, and give our children the best future possible."

Senior editor Michael K. Stone is a featured speaker at the inaugural Green Schools National Conference, October 24-26 in Minneapolis. He will present the guiding principles of the Center's Smart by Nature initiative and discuss learning from living systems in schooling for sustainability.

On September 23, the Center for Ecoliteracy and Earth Island Institute are proud to present the award-winning film "A Simple Question: The Story of STRAW." Through STRAW (Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed), more than 25,000 students have restored over 20 miles of creek banks while learning watershed ecology, reconnecting community, and energizing education.

"The real world is the optimal learning environment" is a Center guiding principle. We'll explore that principle in a workshop from 2:45 to 4:15 p.m. on October 15 at the annual Bioneers conference. Workshop leaders will be CEL creative director Karen Brown, senior editor Michael K. Stone, and master naturalist and educator Ane Carla Rovetta, who will lead participants in a hands-on creekside exploration. Register for the conference through CEL and receive a 10% discount.

Center for Ecoliteracy representatives Zenobia Barlow, Carolie Sly, and Karen Brown are featured presenters at the Hawai'i Island School Garden Network Summer Conference, "Smart by Nature — Growing School Garden Curriculum K–12." The conference, offered in collaboration with the community-based nonprofit Kohala Center, will focus on building a statewide foundation for ecoliteracy education, using as resources the Center's books Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability and Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment.

Senior editor Michael K. Stone is a keynote speaker at the 2010 Biennial of the Americas in Denver. This month-long celebration of the culture, ideas, and people of the Western Hemisphere is organized around themes of innovation, sustainability, community, and the arts. Michael's presentation, based on the Center's Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability, is July 20 at the McNichols Building in Civic Center Park. Center consultant Jeannette Armstrong speaks July 22. Events are open to the public.

"Children are becoming aware," writes Jeremy Rifkin, "that everything they do — the very way they live — affects the lives of every other human being, our fellow creatures, and the biosphere we cohabit." In this excerpt from his important recent book, The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2009), Rifkin describes the emergence of curricula that combine biosphere awareness with empathy to make the global emotional connections that sustainable living requires.

The Center for Ecoliteracy's 2010–2011 Leadership Academy meets for four all-day sessions between October and May. Participants work with leading thinkers and practitioners and implement projects to cultivate knowledge, values, and skills for sustainable living. Enrollment is limited in order to ensure maximum interaction.

"If we are to pull together as a human community, it will be crucial for people in affluent nations to embrace a deep and sophisticated simplicity as a foundation for sustainability," writes Duane Elgin in this excerpt from his newly revised book, Voluntary Simplicity: Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich.

The work of the Center for Ecoliteracy and the words of its staff members appear regularly in a wide variety of media, from Energy Bulletin to Etsy to The Huffington Post and radio interviews. Track our appearances in the Media Room on our website.

Turn off the set, turn on to nature for Earth Week! The Biomimicry Institute invites kids, parents, and teachers to set aside electronic devices like televisions, computers, and video games and go outside to play, learn, and interact with nature during Earth Week (April 19-25), then share stories on the Biomimicry website.

The Center for Ecoliteracy announces its own YouTube channel. The channel features presentations by board and staff, excerpts from CEL-sponsored seminars, videos about schools profiled in our publications, and topics related to schooling for sustainability.

Caitlin Flanagan's recent article in The Atlantic, "Cultivating Failure," lambasted school gardens while masterfully stirring up emotions. But what are the facts about school gardens and learning? Lisa Bennett, communications director for the Center for Ecoliteracy, provides some answers in this essay.

The Center for Ecoliteracy's teacher's guide to the provocative film Food, Inc. is now available in Spanish translation. The guide provides questions and activities for high school students on issues ranging from public health to animal welfare and workers' rights. Food, Inc. has been named to the short list from which the 2009 Academy Award for feature documentary finalists will be chosen.

February 26, 2010. Worried about the future of the planet? Join Head-Royce School, Marin Academy, and the Center for Ecoliteracy for a lively program about Smart by Nature schooling in the vital and hopeful new movement of educators preparing young people to live sustainably. Learn about ways to use principles of ecological literacy in food programs, campus facilities, and innovative curriculum development.

In 1972, Bhutan adopted "Gross National Happiness" (GNH) as its guiding principle for integrating sustainable development with environmental conservation and preservation of the country's ancient culture and traditions. The prime minister recently launched an initiative to introduce GNH principles into the educational system at every level. Center for Ecoliteracy executive director Zenobia Barlow has been invited to serve on an international team of experts advising the government for this project. The team will convene with Bhutanese policy planners and international development experts December 7–12 in Bhutan to plan a multi-year project for creating a curriculum grounded in mind, heart, spirit, and action. Confirmed participants include Vandana Shiva, Satish Kumar, David W. Orr, Gregory Cajete, Sanjit Bunker Roy, Cheryl Charles, and Manish Jain.

Several outstanding leaders in schooling for sustainability have joined the roster for the Center's "Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability" Bioneers pre-conference intensive on October 15 in San Rafael, California. We have added dialogues on leadership and change with Paul Chapman, head of school at Head-Royce School in Oakland; principal Maria Cisneros of Valley Oak High School in Napa; and board member Mimi Buckley of Marin Academy in San Rafael. Just-added workshops feature Green Schools Initiative executive director Deborah Moore and artist, storyteller, and naturalist Ane Carla Rovetta, who will lead an outdoor exploration.

Today marks the launch of our new book, Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability. A first of its kind, this book portrays the growing sustainability movement in American K-12 education and showcases inspiring stories of public, independent, and charter schools across the country. It offers hope, inspiration, and expert advice, while documenting a rising trend that is good news for education and the environment. Written by our senior editor, Michael K. Stone, who has covered education for sustainable living for nearly a decade, the book features a foreword by Daniel Goleman, author of Ecological Intelligence, and has already been endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation, David W. Orr, Alice Waters, and others.