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  This list, which continues to evolve, includes bibliographies, tools, organizations, programs, and other resources related to work in education and sustainability.

Action for Nature
Action For Nature encourages young people to take personal action to better their environment, and to foster love and respect for nature. AFN sponsors the Action For Nature International Young Eco-Heroes Awards Program, which recognizes children and teens who have successfully completed a project that has improved the environment. AFN has also published Acting for Nature, a collection of stories about young people who took personal action to help the environment.
http://www.actionfornature.org/

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
A nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that represents 170,000 educators from more than 135 countries, ASCD addresses all aspects of effective teaching and learning -— professional development, educational leadership, and capacity building, etc.
http://www.ascd.org

The Bay Institute
One of the first organizations to advocate viewing the entire San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem as a single, interdependent watershed, The Bay Institute conducts scientific research, political advocacy, and public education programs on behalf of that ecosystem's environmental restoration and protection. The Institute is the sponsor of the Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW) Project.
http://www.bay.org

Bioneers
The Bioneers annual conference is a prime gathering of leading scientific and social innovators who have demonstrated visionary and practical models for restoring the Earth and communities. Other Bioneers programs include satellite activities in many cities, a syndicated radio program, a book series, and a youth initiative.
http://www.bioneers.org

Bringing the World Alive
The Orion Society offers a detailed bibliography of picture books that "reflect and celebrate a child's view of the natural world." These are neither "fact books" nor guidebooks. "They are stories of children interacting with nature, folk tales about the origins of natural phenomena, poems that reflect the patterns and rhythms of the natural world." (Age level not specified.)
http://www.orionsociety.org/pages/os/education/btwa.html

Fritjof Capra's Website
The website for Fritjof Capra, physicist, systems thinker, cofounder of the Center for Ecoliteracy and author of The Hidden Connections, The Web of Life, The Tao of Physics and other books, includes articles, a bibliography, a schedule of upcoming lectures, and information about management seminars.
http://www.FritjofCapra.net

Center for Food and Justice
Part of the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CFJ engages in collaborative action strategies, community capacity building, and research and education for a sustainable and socially just food system. CFJ coordinates the National Farm to School program.
http://departments.oxy.edu/uepi

The Center for Food Safety
CFS is a public interest and environmental advocacy organization that works to address the impacts of our food production system on human health, animal welfare, and the environment.
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/

The Center for the Book
Located at the Library of Congress, the Center promotes books, reading, libraries, and literacy, and celebrates the legacy of books and the printed word. The Center cosponsors the River of Words Annual Art and Poetry Contest.
http://www.loc.gov/loc/cfbook/

The Center for Urban Agriculture at Fairview Gardens
Based on one of the oldest organic farms in California, the Center, founded by Michael Ableman, has become an internationally respected model for small-scale urban food production, agricultural land preservation, farm-based education, and the integration of farms and the communities that they serve.
http://www.fairviewgardens.org/

Chez Panisse Foundation
The Chez Panisse Foundation is a publicly supported foundation associated with Alice Waters's Chez Panisse Restaurant and Café in Berkeley. Committed to transforming public education by using food traditions to teach, nurture, and empower young people, the foundation has been the primary funder of The Edible Schoolyard and is a leading partner in the School Lunch Initiative with the Berkeley Unified School District.
http://www.chezpanisse.org

Children and Urban Agriculture
This link takes users to City Farmer's "Children and Urban Agriculture" pages, which contain brief descriptions of projects and links to their sites.
http://www.cityfarmer.org/subchildren.html#children/

Classroom FeederWatch
Developed by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology with funding from the National Science Foundation, Classroom FeederWatch is a research and interdisciplinary education curriculum designed for students in grades 5-8. Through participation in this project, students learn how science and scientists work, and in the process become scientists themselves. This project provides opportunities to integrate science with language arts, visual arts, social studies, math, and technology. Students produce a newsletter that describes their findings as well as their feelings about the project. Through electronic communication, students discuss questions with their peers in classrooms across the country.
http://birds.cornell.edu/cfw/

The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education
The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education's mission is to monitor the evolving thinking and skills of the most important champions of sustainability, and to transform them into educational materials and a pedagogical system that inspire young people to think about the world, their relationship to it, and their ability to influence it in an entirely new way.
http://www.sustainabilityed.org

Commercial Alert
Commercial Alert's mission is “to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.” Commercial Alert has played a leading role in monitoring the marketing of junk foods to children.
http://www.commercialalert.org

Community Alliance with Family Farmers
The Community Alliance with Family Farmers is building a movement of rural and urban people to foster family-scale agriculture that cares for the land, sustains local economies, and promotes social justice.
http://www.caff.org

Community Food Security Coalition
CFSC is dedicated to building strong, sustainable, local and regional food systems that ensure access to affordable, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food for all people at all times.
http://www.foodsecurity.org/

Dr. Art's Guide to Science/WestEd
Dr. Art's Guide to Science sorts out the Big Ideas undergirding a systems understanding of science, and explains and connects them with clarity and wit, aided by Emiko Paul's delightful and useful illustrations. A companion DVD models effective and engaging science teaching. Both book and DVD are supplemented with ideas, experiments, lesson plans, and "cool stuff" on the website.
http://www.guidetoscience.net/cs/drart/print/docs/drart/home.htm

The Edible Schoolyard
The Edible Schoolyard (ESY) at Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley has been recognized around the world for its organic garden, landscape, and kitchen, which are wholly integrated into the school's curriculum. Its goals are grounded in ecological concepts developed by the Center for Ecoliteracy, a supporter since ESY's beginnings.
http://www.edibleschoolyard.org

En'owkin Centre
En'owkin Centre is an indigenous cultural, educational, ecological, and creative arts post-secondary institution located in British Columbia. Its offerings include an indigenous fine arts program, an indigenous political development and leadership certificate program, and an Okanagan adult language program. The Centre hosts regional, national, and international indigenous conferences and forums, and houses Theytus Books, the first publisher in Canada under aboriginal ownership and control.
http://www.enowkincentre.ca

Food and Society Initiative
Located at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, FAS supports the creation and expansion of community-based food systems that are locally owned and controlled, environmentally sound and health promoting. It focuses on three primary areas: market-based change, institutional support, and public policy.
http://www.wkkf.org

FoodRoutes
FoodRoutes Network (FRN) is a national nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding local, community-based food systems and to “reintroducing Americans to their food, the seeds it grows from, the farmers who produce it, and the routes that carry it from the fields to our tables.” FRN works to help local organizations mount information and marketing campaigns.
http://www.foodroutes.org

The Food Timeline
Morris County, New Jersey librarians created the Food Timeline as a way to help students, parents, and teachers locate food history and period recipes. It is not one single website, but a collection of related web pages.
http://www.foodtimeline.org/

Funders for Sustainable Food Systems
FSFS convenes public and private grantmakers to work together and identify opportunities for systemic solutions to issues of food sustainability in California.
http://www.foodfunders.org

The Green Gate
This Natural Resources Defense Council site offers information on the health of the San Francisco Bay Area environment. It brings together information on environmental "indicators" in five categories (air, water, wildlife, urban living, and health) and covers the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area.
http://www.nrdc.org/greengate/

International Rivers Network
IRN is a leading activist organization protecting rivers and watersheds, and encouraging equitable and sustainable methods of meeting needs for water, energy, and flood management. IRN was the original cosponsor of the River of Words program.
http://www.irn.org

Journey North: A Global Study of Wildlife Migration
Among the species studied in this global study of migratory species are swallows, hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, and gray whales. The site includes teacher materials, background information, and a forum for sharing the data that students have collected.
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/index.html

W.K. Kellogg Foundation
The Food Systems and Rural Development area is one of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's four primary programming areas.
http://www.wkkf.org/

Kids Gardening
Kids Gardening provides information, resources, and supplies for children, parents, and teachers who are interesting in gardening.
http://www.kidsgardening.com

Kidsregen.org
The Rodale Institute's Kidsregen.org offers inspirational and practical ways that kids, parents, and educators can improve their health and the health of the environment. Entertaining stories, crafts, games, recipes, and other features reveal the important connection between healthy soil, healthy food, and healthy people. The site also holds an annual contest that recognizes and rewards outstanding organic school gardens.
http://www.kidsregen.org/

kinderGARDEN
This site provides an introduction to the many ways that children can interact with plants and the outdoors.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/kindergarden/kinder.htm

The Land Institute
The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas works in the area of Natural Systems Agriculture. It seeks to develop an agriculture that will save soil from being lost or poisoned while promoting a community life at once prosperous and enduring.
http://www.landinstitute.org

Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture
The Leopold Center, located at Iowa State University, has three primary objectives: to identify and reduce negative impacts of agriculture on natural resources and rural communities, to develop profitable farming systems that conserve natural resources, and to work with ISU Extension and other groups to inform the public of new research findings.
http://www.ag.iastate.edu/centers/leopold/

Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College
A primary example of ecodesign; conceptualized and designed under David W. Orr's leadership in a cooperative effort of students, staff, and professionals. The Lewis Center was designed so that the building itself is part of the curriculum that is taught within it.
http://www.oberlin.edu/envs/ajlc/Default.html

Life Lab
Through its curricula and programs, Life Lab helps schools develop gardens where children can create "living laboratories" for the study of the natural world.
http://www.lifelab.org

Literacy for Environmental Justice
In partnership with the public school system and with other community-based organizations LEJ engages urban youth in environmental problems by drawing linkages between the state of human health, the environment, and urban quality of life. The program teaches and employs young people to research, design, and organize educational neighborhood improvement projects in Bayview Hunters Point and surrounding communities in San Francisco.
http://www.lejyouth.org

National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture
The National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is a network of diverse groups cooperating to shape national policies in order to foster a sustainable food and agricultural system that is economically viable, environmentally sound, socially just, and humane.
http://www.sustainableagriculture.net

National Geographic Wild World
This website takes NGS Wild World maps and makes them interactive, adding profiles and photos of more than 1,000 ecoregions, multimedia features, and more. (K-12 Geography/Maps)
http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/index.html

North Coast Rural Challenge Network
NCRCN, in coastal Mendocino County, California, evolved from one rural school district into a multi-district collaboration, recognized as a model for community-based rural education that adapts technology and place-based learning to connect schools separated by wide distances and mountain ranges.
http://www.ncrcn.org

Nutrition in the Garden
The Nutrition in the Garden site from Texas A&M includes lesson plans, research, and more.
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/nutrition/index/index.html

Ocean Arks International
Ocean Arks International was founded in 1981 by John Todd and Nancy Jack Todd to create an ecological design science and practice adaptable to both rich and poor regions of the world. Much of its present work focuses on utilizing natural processes, through diverse constructed aquatic ecosystems, to treat municipal and industrial wastewater and restore contaminated bodies of water.
http://www.oceanarks.org

The Orion Society
Through publishing books, magazines, and online, Orion works to reconnect human culture with the natural world, blend scientific thinking with the arts, engage the heart and mind, and strive to make clear what humans have in common. Orion regularly publishes the writings of Wendell Berry, David W. Orr, and other important thinkers.
http://www.orionsociety.org

River of Words (ROW)
ROW engages students with their local watersheds through practicing close observation and expressing their connections to the environment in art and poetry. In affiliation with the Library of Congress, ROW annually conducts the world's largest youth poetry and art contest. Through its Watershed Curriculum, ROW trains thousands of classroom teachers, park rangers, and youth workers to incorporate nature exploration and the arts in their programs.
http://www.riverofwords.org

Rocky Mountain Institute
A leader in the practice and promotion of integrative ecological design, RMI works to demonstrate to individuals, businesses, and governments that restorative use of resources and sustaining the human and natural worlds are compatible with creating wealth and increasing security, largely by doing what they do far more efficiently.
http://www.rmi.org

The School Lunch Initiative
The School Lunch Initiative is a project to design and implement curriculum and food service innovations across a public school district. This project is a partnership of the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Berkeley Unified School District, in collaboration with the Center for Ecoliteracy and Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute.
http://www.schoollunchinitiative.org

Schoolyard Ecology
This site offers a wealth of sample activities and investigations that have been field tested by participants in the Schoolyard Ecology project.
http://www.ecostudies.org/syefest/appen1main.htm

Schumacher College
Located in the countryside of Devon, England the college offers programs in business, sustainability, holistic science and other fields, with courses by faculty such as Fritjof Capra, David W. Orr, and the college's cofounder, Satish Kumar. Courses are intense living and learning experiences in which the cooperative, sustainable lifestyle practiced by participants is considered to be part of the course.
http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/index.html

Mary E. Silveira School
Mary E. Silveira, an elementary school in San Rafael, California is profiled on the Center's website in an article by principal Jeanne Casella.
http://dixiesd.marin.k12.ca.us/marysilveira/index.html

Slow Food
Slow Food is an international organization of "eco-gastronomes" whose mission is "to protect the pleasures of the table from the homogenization of modern fast food and life. “Through a variety of initiatives, it promotes gastronomic culture, develops taste education, conserves agricultural biodiversity, and protects traditional foods at the risk of extinction.”
http://www.slowfood.com

Slow Food USA
Slow Food USA is dedicated to supporting and celebrating the food traditions of North America. Slow Food in Schools is a national program of garden-to-table projects created to cultivate children's senses while teaching an ecological approach to food. Slow Food in Schools seeks to help children develop an appreciation for real, wholesome food and an understanding of land stewardship and sustainable food practices.
http://www.slowfoodusa.org/

Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW)
STRAW practices hands-on, place-based education through watershed restoration projects connected to students' classroom lessons. STRAW's growth from a project in one classroom to a consortium of schools, farms, and private and public agencies illustrates solving for pattern and such ecological concepts as networks, cycles, nested systems, and development.
http://www.bay.org/watershed_education.htm

Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders
SAFSF, a working group of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, is a collaboration of funders with a shared interest in economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially responsible systems of food production, processing, distribution, and consumption.
http://www.safsf.org

Sustainability Institute
SI was founded by the late Donella Meadows to apply systems thinking and organization to economic, social, and environmental challenges. Its work includes stakeholder-based systems analysis and change projects, consulting, research, workshops, facilitated systems thinking sessions, project evaluations, and written publications.
http://sustainer.org/

Systemic School and Community Change
The Center for Environmental Education's Green Schools site offers information about starting and sustaining a green school.
http://www.schoolsgogreen.org/systemic.html

The Utah Education Network
Themepark offers materials organized into topics such as cycles, patterns, systems, habitats, insects, and more.
http://www.uen.org./themepark/

Watershed Dynamics
This Cornell University-developed curriculum divides the study of watersheds into seven units, which include a series of protocols that high school students can use to explore the science of watersheds and to perform original investigative research.
http://ei.cornell.edu/watersheds/links.asp

Watershed Media
A non profit publisher that produces action-oriented, visually dynamic, communication resources to influence the transition to a sustainable society. Watershed Media creates alliances with leading activist organizations and practitioners working on select issues to add expertise, credibility, and to more carefully assess best practices and frame long-term goals. Their projects are targeted toward a specific audience that can benefit from and act upon the book's information and resources.
http://www.watershedmedia.org

 

 

 

 

 

     
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