What is
Education for
Sustainability?
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
What does EFS mean to you?
• Interconnected activity-pick two people,
keep them in your line of sight, slowly start
moving, keeping them in your sight. What
happened?
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Sustainability
By sustainability we mean:
“improving quality of life—economically, socially, and
environmentally—for all, now and for future generations.”
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Explicit and Implicit EFS
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
The Big Ideas of Sustainability
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Ability to make a difference
Change over time
Community
Cycles
Diversity
Equilibrium
Equity/Fairness
Interdependence
Limits
Long-term effects
Multiple Perspectives
Place
Systems
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
What are you doing that is successful?
• Partner talk– talk with someone you don’t work with about a
unit, theme that you’ve done in your class
that has been really successful.
– What made it successful?
– How did you know it was successful?
– We’ll share a few of these stories.
– How can we deepen, enrich these
experiences using the lens of sustainability?
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Big Ideas and Essential Questions
Community:
What is a community?
Interdependence:
What can communities learn from natural systems to improve our common future?
Cycles:
What cycles are we a part of?
Change over time:
How do living things adapt to changes in their environment?
Fairness / Equity:
How should we balance the rights of individuals with the common good?
Place:
How does where we live impact how we live?
Ability to make a difference:
How do individuals’ choices affect themselves, their communities, and the world?
Long-term effects:
In what ways does how we live today impact how people live in the future?
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
K-12 Scope & Sequence of
the Big Ideas of Sustainability
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Playing with the Promising Practices
• Take an envelope with the Promising Practices
of EFS in ECE
• With your group, organize these practices so
they make sense to your group.
• Display them in any manner you wish. Please
make note of what you feel is missing,
redundant, and/or any feedback.
• Share with the larger group.
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Promising Practices
• Promising Practice 1- The curriculum is integrated,
and place-based.
• Promising Practice 2- Learning and curriculum are
play-based and emergent.
• Promising Practice 3- Sustainability is a lens.
• Promising Practice 4- The campus and classroom
demonstrate and practice sustainability.
• Promising Practice 5- Young children explore their
connection to and relationship with the natural and
built world through developmentally appropriate Big
Ideas of Sustainability.
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Promising Practices
• Promising Practice 6- Young children have a voice,
make decisions, and draw connections between their
choices and the impact on their worlds.
• Promising Practice 7- Local and cultural
perspectives are considered and learned through
building healthy relationships with family,
classroom, and community.
• Promising Practice 8- Learning is relevant and
connected to children’s lives.
• Promising Practice 9- Students practice inquiry and
open-ended questioning.
• Promising Practice 10- Anti-bias, equity, and justice
are the foundation of our teaching
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Placed-Based Education
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Nature, Food & Community
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Moving from Wonder to Action
Special thanks to our colleague, Ewa Smuk, in Poland for helping us develop
this graphic.
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Nature
Nature
Nature
Nature
Nature
Nature
Nature
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Food
Food
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Food
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Food
Food
Food
Food
Picture of Flailing wheat??
Food
Food
Food
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Community
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Community
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Community
Community
Facilitated Learning Opportunities
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Corn
Dress Up A Bean Plant
The Fabulous Five
Seed Scavenger Hunt
Wonderful Wheat
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Reflection on the workshop
• On the triangle, write 3 ideas you want to
remember.
• What ‘squared’ with my beliefs, my
practice? Jot down four ideas.
• Circles questions circling around my head!
Write them in the circle!
Shelburne Farms’ Sustainable Schools Project
Resources
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www.Shelburnefarms.org
www.sustainableschoolsproject.org
www.Farmtoschool.org
www.childrenandnature.org
www.greenheartsinc.org
• Linda Wellings, Early Childhood Coordinator, Shelburne Farms,
lwellings@shelburnefarms.org or 802 985-0308
More resources
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Project Seasons by Deborah Parella
The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola
Corn by Gail Gibbons
I Like Corn by Robin Pickering
Corn-On and Off the Cob by Allan Fowler
Good Bread A Book of Thanks by Brigitte Weninger and Anne Moller
Bread Is For Eating by David & Phillis Gershator
Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven
And the Good Brown Earth by Kathy Henderson
The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin
How Groundhog’s Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry
Planting the Wild Garden by Kathryn O. Galbraith
Compost Stew by Mary McKenna Siddals
Our School Garden by Rick Swann
I Took A Walk by Henry Cole
Hair by Kate Pelty
Our Grandparents-A Global Album by Maya Ajmera, Sheila Kinkade, Cynthia Pon
I Am Freedom’s Child by Bill Martin Jr.