Upcoming Seminars

Center for Ecoliteracy Workshop for Slow Food in Schools
August 29, 2008, Slow Food Nation, San Francisco

In this workshop, Carolie Sly, Ph.D., education program specialists from the Center for Ecoliteracy, will engage you in thinking about your instructional choices and demonstrate ways to choose and design lessons that increase understanding through a model of engaging the head, heart, hand, and spirit.

Using the Center for Ecoliteracy's new publication, Big Ideas: Linking Food, Health, Culture, and the Environment, you will work with a conceptual framework and begin planning learning activities. (Participants will receive a complimentary copy of this publication.)

For more information about this event, visit www.slowfoodnation.org

Help Wanted: 50 Million New Farmers
August 29, 2008, Slow Food Nation Changemakers Day, San Francisco

A panel discussion for professionals focused on sustainable food systems, moderated by the Center for Ecoliteracy.

In 1900, nearly 40 percent of Americans farmed full time. Today, only about 1 percent are actively engaged in raising the food we all eat, and food imports are at an all time high. But as rising fuel costs, resource depletion, and the unprecedented challenges of climate change make industrial farming and long distance food transportation impractical and unsustainable, how will we feed ourselves and who will grow our food? If we follow the farming patterns of 1900, we will need 50,000,000 new farmers – experienced, healthy, intelligent, good-humored, committed individuals with exquisite ecological literacy – to provide the food we need for our current population. Where will they come from, how will we educate them, and how will the farms of the very near future be different from those we know today? This discussion, which features several farmers and representatives of Marin Organic and the Northeast Organic Farming Association, will be moderated by Karen Brown, creative director of the Center for Ecoliteracy.

For more information about this event, visit www.slowfoodnation.org

Center for Ecoliteracy and Bioneers Present
EcoSchools: Educating for Sustainable Communities: A Special All-Day Intensive
October 16, 2008: Marin Center, San Rafael, California

This special pre-Bioneers conference all-day intensive is designed for educators, activists, parents, youth, the media, and others who want to learn about best practices for “greening” schools, integrating ecological learning across the curriculum, and sustaining the natural and social communities in which schools exist. Speakers will examine how members of an ecoschool community consider the larger impact of their decisions in building design, school food, purchasing policies, energy use, and service learning. They will discuss how staff and students honor interconnectedness and context and integrate ecological awareness, understanding, and practices throughout the curriculum and community.

It features Fritjof Capra, Center for Ecoliteracy cofounder and bestselling author; David Orr, professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin College and Center for Ecoliteracy board member; panel discussions with heads of schools, teachers, and students; presentations by Center for Ecoliteracy staff and education specialists; breakout sessions including workshops and small-group colloquies moderated by allied leaders focused on innovations in campus design and maintenance; food; gardens and schoolyards; and community on and off campus; and optional field trips to model ecoschools in the region.
For further information visit Bioneers >

Recent Seminars

Rethinking Food, Health, and the Environment:
Making Learning Connections
June 22-27, 2008: San Anselmo, California
August 9-13, 2008: New York, New York

A residential institute for educators, parents, and activists dedicated to helping schools and districts create learning connections between healthy school food and curriculum. Copresented by the Center for Ecoliteracy and Teachers College Columbia University.

This institute offered updates on the latest research in nutrition and sustainable education; how-to sessions with leading practitioners; field trips to regional farms and schools engaged in rethinking school food; and opportunities to share experiences and model the practices of a learning community. Participants also developed implementation plans for individual schools and districts based on the Center for Ecoliteracy's Rethinking School Lunch planning framework and the Teachers College Linking Food and the Environment (LiFE) Curriculum Series.

Environmental Sustainability: Making Learning Connections
August 14-15, 2008: The Bay School of San Francisco, San Francisco, California

An institute on how to introduce sustainability into K-12 classes across the disciplines. It also examined ways to make facilities, food service, landscaping, student gardens, and community service more environmentally sustainable.

Featured speakers included Fritjof Capra, bestselling author and cofounder of the Center for Ecoliteracy; the academic dean and faculty from the Head-Royce School in Oakland; representatives of Environmental Education for Kids, The Edible Schoolyard, and Ecocity Builders. It was facilitated by Carolie Sly, education specialist for the Center for Ecoliteracy, and was offered in partnership with the Bay Area Teacher Development Collaborative, a coalition of 44 schools from the East Bay and Marin to the Monterey Peninsula.
Visit Bay Area Teacher Development Collaborative >