USGBC, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to bring green education to schools
The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council has teamed up with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) to educate young people on sustainability. USGBC and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recently released a National Action Plan for Educating for Sustainability, a call for action to ensure that Education for Sustainability (EfS) is accessible to all students across the United States. The plan outlines a goal for all 50 states to adopt a comprehensive green schools policy that includes a graduation requirement around sustainability literacy by 2040.
According to USGBC, this plan marks the first time in the sustainability education movement that the leaders of education, U.S. providers of K-12 academic content, and practitioners on the ground have come together around EfS themes.
“When the U.S. Department of Education published its Green Ribbon Schools award which called for all K-12 graduates to be environmentally literate, we received that as a directive for the community to band together and figure out how we will ensure that happens,” said Rachel Gutter, director of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC. “This National Action Plan represents the perspectives of the leading minds and the strongest champions of EfS for the first time together with one voice committing to a series of actions that will ensure that every student graduating from a U.S. K-12 school will be environmentally literate by the year 2040.”
The action plan contains 11 sections that examine critical elements involved in ensuring that every student receives sustainability education by 2040. These categories include: collaboration, economic drivers, integrated content and curriculum, leadership, policy, pre-service teacher preparation, professional development, public awareness, research, student assessment, and teacher evaluation. Each section is authored by a different expert in the EfS field, with additional content provided by schools and business contributors including leaders from United Technologies Corporation, Office Depot, and Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.).
“EfS increases student engagement, a catalyst for both academic achievement and drop-out prevention, providing a meaningful context to prepare students for careers and life beyond school,” said David Sobel, senior faculty at Antioch University New England and lead author of the National Action Plan. “EfS allows schools, districts, and states to focus simultaneously on preparation for college, career, and civic life by providing students opportunities to explore and improve social, economic, and environmental conditions at home and abroad. And recent national calls to prioritize STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math) are deeply enriched by the interdisciplinary nature of EfS.”
For more information and to download the National Action Plan for Educating for Sustainability, visit centerforgreenschools.org/nationalactionplan.
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