Closing the Opportunity Gap

Exemplar Type: PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
Title: Closing the Opportunity Gap: 10 Instructional and Organizational Criterion with Rubrics
Grades: Pre-K - 12
Discipline: Interdisciplinary
Submitted By: Greg Smith

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Summary: At the most basic level, a School of Opportunity must strive to ensure that all students have access to rich, challenging and supported opportunities to learn. This means that the school’s best opportunities cannot be exclusive or rationed. For this reason, we will not recognize a school as a “School of Opportunity” if it significantly restricts or stratifies student access to those best opportunities. In addition, we will not recognize a school as a “School of Opportunity” if it has “zero tolerance” policies or other discipline policies that unnecessarily exclude students from opportunities to learn.

Big Ideas

• A healthy and sustainable future for human and other life is possible

• Every system is perfectly formed to get the results it gets

• There is no beginning or end in a system. Intervene where there are favorable conditions, i.e., where and when possible

• Fairness applies to all. To us, to them and to the "we" that binds us all together

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don't do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Mindful: Metacognition

• Mindful: Questioning

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

• Mindful: Transference

Dispositions

• Curious

• Efficacious

• Motivated

• Respectful

• Self Aware

Applications and Actions

• Engage in Dialogue

• Teach and Learn

• Design to optimize health and adaptability

• Empower people and groups

• Make the least change for the greatest effect

• Take responsibility for the difference you make

• Be inclusive

• Practice justice and equity for all

• Take responsibility for the effect you have on future generations

• Treat others with respect and dignity

• Listen to one another

• Serve your community

Community Connections

• Evaluate progress (read the feedback), reflect, adjust, and continually improve performance

• School buildings and grounds serve the whole community as learning hubs for continuing education of individuals as well as school and community stakeholders to learn together for the future they want

• Provide Independent and Curriculum Based Learning Sites (case studies, learning journeys, research sites)

• Provide Physical spaces for school and community stakeholders to learn and work together for the future they want

Integrating Sustainability Science Into the Classroom

Exemplar Type: COURSE
Title: Integrating Sustainability Science Into the Classroom
Grades: K-12
Discipline: Science
Submitted By: Annie Hale

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Integrating Sustainability Science Into the Classroom
This course is designed and curated by the Sustainability Science Education Project at Arizona State University. Led by 2001 Nobel Laureate Dr. Lee Hartwell, this professional development class aims to cultivate the skills and strategies necessary for incorporating sustainability science topics across common PreK-12th-grade curricula, such as English Language Arts, Literacy, History, Social Studies, Science, Art, Drama, and Mathematics. Educators will have the opportunity to connect state standards to big sustainability ideas while creating tangible materials that fit individual classroom needs. The ultimate goal is to prepare PreK-12th-grade educators to advance the next generation of scientifically literate and globally minded citizens.

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BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

• A healthy and sustainable future for human and other life is possible

• We are all in this together: We are interdependent on each other and on the natural systems

• A sustainable solution solves more than one problem at a time and minimizes the creation of new problems

• The significant problems we face can’t be solved with the same thinking we used to create them. Our prior experiences with the world create cognitive frameworks (also known as mental models/maps) that inform what we can perceive. They shape our behavior and our behavior causes results. If we want to produce different results, it all begins with a change in thinking

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don’t do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Anticipatory: Futures Thinking

• Emergent: Creative Thinking

• Emergent: Design Thinking

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Complex: [Living] Systems Thinking

• Mindful: Metacognition

• Mindful: Questioning

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

Applied Knowledge and Actions

• Inventing The Future

• Cultures, Traditions and Change

• The Many Ways of Knowing

• System Dynamics and Change

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

• Multiple Perspectives

Dispositions

• Curious

• Efficacious

• Imaginative

• Mindful

• Motivated

• Open Minded

• Collaborative

• Ethical

• Responsible

• Trustworthy

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Engage in Dialogue

• Engage in Role-Playing, Learning Journeys, Simulations & Games

• Honor the specific knowledge and skills that each person and culture brings

• Build from successes, Learn from mistakes, develop strategies to improve, and apply what is learned

• Plan Scenarios

• Teach and Learn

• Design for multiple pathways, resilience and reinforcement

• Design for whole systems integrity with ecological principles and physical laws in mind

• Ask different questions and actively listen for the answer

• Define and Re-Define Progress

• Empower people and groups

• Envision, strategize and plan

• Evolve the rules when necessary

• Facilitate a shared understanding of sustainability and regeneration

• Lead by example

• Relentlessly adjust to the here and now with the future in mind

• Take responsibility for the difference you make

• Trust local wisdom

• Be inclusive

• Embrace mutually beneficial rights of humanity and nature nature

• Practice justice and equity for all

• Take responsibility for the effect you have on future generations

• Treat others with respect and dignity

• Act wisely individually and collectively, with precaution and in context

• Create and maintain highly functional and successful teams

• Listen to one another

• Serve your community

Michigan's Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative

Exemplar Type: CASE STUDY
Title: Michigan's Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative - A Statewide Place-Based Education Effort to Connect Schools to Communities
Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Discipline: Interdisciplinary | Science, Social Studies, Literacy, Visual Arts
Submitted By: Greg Smith

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Summary: The Great Lakes Stewardship Initiative (GLSI) has for 10 years been engaged in the systematic introduction of place-based learning approaches with an environmental and ecojustice focus throughout the state of Michigan. It has sought to create strong partnerships between schools and local organizations and agencies with the intent of cultivating knowledgeable and active citizen stewards. By the 2015-2016 academic year, the GLSI had worked with teachers in 283 schools, engaging over 80,000 students in its projects, demonstrating how place-based approaches can be brought to scale in both rural and urban communities.

Big Ideas

• Humans are dependent on Earth's life-support systems

• Places are alive, unique and evolving. If humans want to flourish over time, our relationships with the places in which we live must be mutually beneficial

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• Individual Rights are upheld by Collective Responsibilities. We must reconcile them when they come into conflict with one another

• We must pay attention to the results of our thinking and behavior on the systems upon which we depend if we want to thrive over time. Read the Feedback

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don't do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Mindful: Questioning

• Applied Knowledge -

• Strong Sense of Place

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

Dispositions

• Curious

• Efficacious

• Motivated

• Caring

• Collaborative

• Place/Community Conscious

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Engage in Dialogue

• Design to optimize health and adaptability

• Ask different questions and actively listen for the answer

• Serve your community

Community Connections

• Students and teachers make authentic contributions to sustainable community development through service learning opportunities, project-based and place based learning opportunities for students that are laterally and vertically embedded in the core curriculum

• Provide Internships for students

• Provide Independent and Curriculum Based Learning Sites (case studies, learning journeys, research sites)

STEAM and Environmental Education Case Study

Exemplar Type: CASE STUDY
Title: STEAM and Environmental Education
Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Discipline: Interdisciplinary
Submitted By: Susan Santone

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STEAM and Environmental Education Case Story

With each passing day, 21st century learning gets a little more obsolete. Don’t get left behind. Empower students and revolutionize learning with the hottest content around.

The 21st century is defined by unprecedented, inter-connected challenges: climate change, water scarcity, food deserts, economic inequality—and on. Left unsolved, these problems will plague students of the 22nd century, the descendants of today’s students. Equity is truly intergenerational.

The Next Generation Science Standards support “scientific and technological literacy for an educated society,” and recognize that “economic innovation depends on a broad foundation of math and science learning.” But behind this “looms the larger question of what it takes to thrive in today’s society. Citizens now face problems from pandemics to energy shortages whose solutions require all the... genius we can muster.”

Changing the story requires wise applications of STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math). But tomorrow’s careers demand something more: economic literacy and a commitment to equity.

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BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

• Creativity (the generation of new forms) is a key property of all living systems and contributes to nature’s ability to sustain life

• Diversity makes complex life possible. It assures resilience in living systems

• Everything must go somewhere because there is no such place as “away”. Matter and energy do not appear or disappear. They cannot be created or destroyed. In a healthy community, one species’ waste is another species’ food

• All systems have limits. Healthy systems live within their limits. Tap the power of limits

• There is an appropriate rate and scale for every living thing and they may not be the same in every circumstance

• We are all in this together: We are interdependent on each other and on the natural systems

• Nature sustains life by creating and nurturing communities

• A small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything

• A sustainable solution solves more than one problem at a time and minimizes the creation of new problems

• Treating symptoms makes them worse over time, creates new problems and doesn’t address the fundamental problem. Create change at the source not the symptom

• Every system is perfectly formed to get the results it gets

• The significant problems we face can’t be solved with the same thinking we used to create them. Our prior experiences with the world create cognitive frameworks (also known as mental models/maps) that inform what we can perceive. They shape our behavior and our behavior causes results. If we want to produce different results, it all begins with a change in thinking

• There is no beginning or end in a system. Intervene where there are favorable conditions, i.e., where and when possible

• Fairness applies to all. To us, to them and to the “we” that binds us all together

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• We all depend on and are responsible for “the commons”, i.e., what we share and hold in trust for future generations. Recognize and Protect the Commons

• We must pay attention to the results of our thinking and behavior on the systems upon which we depend if we want to thrive over time. Read the Feedback

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don’t do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Anticipatory: Futures Thinking

• Emergent: Creative Thinking

• Emergent: Design Thinking

• Emergent: Ecologically Design

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Mindful: Questioning

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

• Mindful: Transference

• Hands On Skills: Use and creation of appropriate technology to the place and culture in which you find yourself

• Hands On Skills: Building, Making, Tinkering, Crafting

• Hands On Skills: Computer Modeling

Applied Knowledge

• Inventing The Future

• Strong Sense of Place

• The Many Ways of Knowing

• Healthy Commons

• System Dynamics and Change

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

• Multiple Perspectives

• Sustainable Economics

Dispositions

• Curious

• Efficacious

• Imaginative

• Mindful

• Open Minded

• Persevering

• Collaborative

• Ethical

• Place/Community Conscious

• Respectful,

• Responsible

• Self Aware

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Engage in Dialogue

• Engage in Role-Playing, Learning Journeys, Simulations & Games

• Build from successes, Learn from mistakes, develop strategies to improve, and apply what is learned

• Plan Scenarios

• Teach and Learn

• Accept responsibility for the consequences of design

• Apply technology appropriately so that today’s solutions don’t become tomorrow’s problems

• Contribute to the regenerative capacity of the systems upon which we depend

• Count and value all the capital (natural, financial, human and social)

• Design for multiple pathways, resilience and reinforcement

• Design for whole systems integrity with ecological principles and physical laws in mind

• Design to optimize health and adaptability

• Design with efficiency and effectiveness for a no waste world that runs off of clean and renewable energy, contributes to diversity, recognizes inter-dependencies and taps the power of limits

• Empower people and groups

• Envision, strategize and plan

• Facilitate a shared understanding of sustainability and regeneration

• Take responsibility for the difference you make

• Practice justice and equity for all

• Take responsibility for the effect you have on future generations

• Act wisely individually and collectively, with precaution and in context

• Create and maintain highly functional and successful teams

• Listen to one another

• Serve your community

Community Connections

• Develop sustainable community visions and re-visions over time

• Map community assets and conduct needs assessments

• Consider and prepare for a range of potential future scenarios, while charting a course toward the preferred future

• Develop, measure and monitor SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic & time bound) goals and sustainable community indicator sets. Schools data is embedded in social, ecological and economic indicator sets

• Co-Design and implement short and long term projects and programs that are mutually beneficial to partners, are inclusive of all stakeholders and are participatory in nature

• Evaluate progress (read the feedback), reflect, adjust, and continually improve performance

• Students and teachers make authentic contributions to sustainable community development through service learning opportunities, project-based and place based learning opportunities for students that are laterally and vertically embedded in the core curriculum

• Regularly and publicly recognize and celebrate individual and collective successes, and progress toward green schools and sustainable community goals at events and in the media

• Make time to reflect on where we are, how we got here, how far we have come, how close we are to where we are going, and what we are going to do next

PRISM - Aka'ula School

Exemplar Type: CASE STUDY
Title: PRISM: Aka'ula School
Grades: 3-5, 6-8
Discipline: Interdisciplinary | Math, Science, Social Studies, Literacy
Submitted By: Greg Smith

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Summary: Teachers Vicki Newberry and Dara Lukonen at the Aka’ula School on the island of Molokai in Hawaii have for more than a decade been involved in an effort to engage their upper elementary and middle school students in issues linked to the environmental and social health of their home place. Called Promoting Resolutions with Integrity for a Sustainable Molokai (PRISM), Newberry, Lukonen, and their students have investigated a range of issues including solid waste disposal at their school and on the island, the impact of ecotourism developments on habitat, bilge water releases, the effect of grazing ungulates on native species, the environmental consequences of disposable diapers, and the restoration of traditional Hawaiian fishponds.

Big Ideas

• Fairness applies to all. To us, to them and to the "we" that binds us all together

  Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• We all depend on and are responsible for "the commons", i.e., what we share and hold in trust for future generations. Recognize and Protect the Commons

• Individual Rights are upheld by Collective Responsibilities. We must reconcile them when they come into conflict with one another

• We must pay attention to the results of our thinking and behavior on the systems upon which we depend if we want to thrive over time. Read the Feedback.

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don't do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Emergent: Creative Thinking

• Emergent: Design Thinking

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Mindful: Questioning

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

Dispositions

• Curious

• Efficacious

• Motivated

• Caring

• Collaborative

• Place/Community Conscious

Applied Knowledge

• Inventing The Future

• Laws and Principles that govern the physical and biological world

• Strong Sense of Place

• Cultures, Traditions, and Change

• Healthy Commons

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

• Multiple Perspectives

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Engage in Dialogue

• Lead by example

• Leave every place better than you found it

• Be inclusive

• Act wisely individually and collectively, with precaution and in context

• Listen to one another

• Serve your community

Community Connections

• Develop sustainable community visions and re-visions over time

• Students and teachers make authentic contributions to sustainable community development through service learning opportunities, project-based and place based learning opportunities for students that are laterally and vertically embedded in the core curriculum

• Provide Internships for students

• Make time to reflect on where we are, how we got here, how far we have come, how close we are to where we are going, and what we are going to do next

Science and Service Learning

Exemplar Type: UNIT
Title: Science and Service Learning
Grades: 3-5
Discipline: Science
Submitted By: Eileen Merritt

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Science and Service Learning

We believe that high quality service-learning instruction engages and motivates students and teaches important science concepts and collaborative skills. Students who participate in service-learning gain the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to become an engaged citizen and solve environmental challenges that lie ahead. We strive to support teachers' science instruction, boost students’ collaborative skills, and spark students’ interest in future civic work.

Participants will explore the topics of energy and natural resources in depth, and try new ways of engaging their students in science that align with the three dimensions of the Next Generation Science Standards. Participants will model and teach students the collaborative skills needed to work together to impact authentic problems in their community. Participants will facilitate a high quality service-learning project with their students.

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BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

• Humans are dependent on Earth’s life-support systems

• We are all in this together: We are interdependent on each other and on the natural systems

• The changes to the Earth’s surface environments made by human activity are causing unintended consequences on the health and well-being of human and other life on Earth (proposed Anthropocene Epoch)

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Anticipatory: Futures Thinking

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

Applied Knowledge and Actions

• Inventing The Future

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

• Multiple Perspectives

Dispositions

• Caring

• Respectful

• Responsible

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Honor the specific knowledge and skills that each person and culture brings

• Ask different questions and actively listen for the answer

• Empower people and groups

• Envision, strategize and plan

• Treat others with respect and dignity

• Listen to one another

Community Connections

• Consider and prepare for a range of potential future scenarios, while charting a course toward the preferred future

• Students and teachers make authentic contributions to sustainable community development through service learning opportunities, project-based and place based learning opportunities for students that are laterally and vertically embedded in the core curriculum

• School buildings and grounds serve the whole community as learning hubs for continuing education of individuals as well as school and community stakeholders to learn together for the future they want

The Fish Game Facilitator's Guide

Exemplar Type: LESSON/ GAME
Title: The Fish Game
Grades: K-12, Undergrad, Grad, Doc, Post Doc
Discipline: Math Science, History/ Soc Studies
Submitted By: Jaimie Cloud

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The Fish Game is often used in schools and communities around the world to start the conversation about education for sustainability with students and stakeholders. The simulation invites us to 'go fishing' and the object of each game is to “have as many fish as possible by the end of 10 rounds”. The game teaches system dynamics, ecological principles, responsible citizenship and more!

The game is a role play simulation. It provides people an experience that demonstrates how easy it is to operate from our frames and not be able to see the feedback. This makes it difficult to take responsibility for the difference we make and in the context of interdependence--everything we do and don't do makes a difference. This explains why we are in an unsustainable situation at present. It also provides an opportunity to re-frame for a sustainable future and to think about our thinking and adjust thinking when necessary as a strategy for thriving over time.

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BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

• Creativity (the generation of new forms) is a key property of all living systems and contributes to nature’s ability to sustain life

• Humans are dependent on Earth’s life-support systems

• All systems have limits. Healthy systems live within their limits. Tap the power of limits

• We are all in this together: We are interdependent on each other and on the natural systems

• A sustainable solution solves more than one problem at a time and minimizes the creation of new problems

• Quick fixes to complex problems tend to back fire

• The significant problems we face can’t be solved with the same thinking we used to create them. Our prior experiences with the world create cognitive frameworks (also known as mental models/maps) that inform what we can perceive. They shape our behavior and our behavior causes results. If we want to produce different results, it all begins with a change in thinking

• Fairness applies to all. To us, to them and to the “we” that binds us all together

• Sustain-ability requires individual and social learning and community practice

• We all depend on and are responsible for “the commons”, i.e., what we share and hold in trust for future generations. Recognize and Protect the Commons

• Individual Rights are upheld by Collective Responsibilities. We must reconcile them when they come into conflict with one another

• We must pay attention to the results of our thinking and behavior on the systems upon which we depend if we want to thrive over time. Read the Feedback

• We are all responsible for the difference we make. Everything we do and everything we don’t do makes a difference

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Anticipatory: Futures Thinking

• Emergent: Lateral Thinking

• Complex: Critical Thinking

• Complex: [Living] Systems Thinking

• Mindful: Metacognition

• Mindful: Questioning, Mindful: Transference

Applied Knowledge

• Healthy Commons

• System Dynamics and Change

• Responsible Local and Global Citizenship

• Sustainable Economics

Dispositions

• Mindful

• Open Minded

• Persevering

• Collaborative

• Responsible

Applications and Actions

• Create Social Learning Communities

• Engage in Role-Playing, Learning Journeys, Simulations & Games

• Honor the specific knowledge and skills that each person and culture brings

• Build from successes, Learn from mistakes, develop strategies to improve, and apply what is learned

• Teach and Learn

• Ask different questions and actively listen for the answer

• Tap the power of limits and use constraints to drive creativity

• Take responsibility for the difference you make

• Embrace mutually beneficial rights of humanity and nature

• Take responsibility for the effect you have on future generations

Place Based Education Unit Planning Sheet

Exemplar Type: Unit Plan
Title: Place Based Ed Unit Planning Sheet
Grades: 6 - 8
Discipline: Science
Submitted By: Chris Wyland
Affiliation: Cottonwood School of Civics and Science

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Animal and Environment Interdependence: Ecosystem Survey

Students perform an ecosystem survey of a local wildlife refuge before a major change is implemented to the ecosystem. The reservoir in the ecosystem will change from 30 acres to 10 acres effectively becoming 1⁄3 the size. See the letter from Portland Parks and Recreation to understand more about the situation. This will happen as a result of replacing a smaller culvert with a much larger one. The local Audubon society voiced concerns on the impact on waterfowl. The intention of the change is to increase biodiversity of the refuge by increasing the size of a culvert that connects this ecosystem to the larger river ecosystem it was separated from 50 years prior by a railway. This culvert is large enough for salmon to stop off for reading on their annual run, deer and larger mammals to swim through etc.This project has been 10 years in the making. The data generated by the first student group will provide a based line of where the ecosystem is at before the project. A later student group will come back and look at where the ecosystem is at after the change.

History of changes to this area:
- Used by First Peoples the area to grow crops (very fertile)
- Railroad installed: Cuts the ecosystem off from the large river ecosystem
- Used as a landfill
- Invasive species overtook the area
- Covered over and converted to wildlife refuge: Restoration work began

Final Product is a presentation displaying the data and findings where the students draw hypotheses about the impacts of the change.

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For the third episode in a three-part series on place-based education in science, we welcome Chris Wyland to the show. Chris is a middle school math and science teacher at the Cottonwood School of Civics and Science in Portland, where the focus of the entire school is encouraging exploration of the natural world and involvement in the local community through the arts and sciences. Continuing our discussion of place-based education in science, Chris joins us to explain this approach in an ecology unit where his middle school students are partnering with the Portland Parks and Recreation Department to apply their scientific knowledge in fieldwork that benefits their local community.

Visit Online

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BENCHMARKS REPRESENTED IN THIS EXEMPLAR

Big Ideas

• Diversity makes complex life possible. It assures resilience in living systems

Higher Order Thinking Skills

• Emergent: Design Thinking

• Complex: [Living] Systems Thinking

• Mindful: Reflective Thinking

Applied Knowledge

• Strong Sense of Place

• System Dynamics and Change

Dispositions

• Curious

• Collaborative

• Place/Community Conscious

• Authentic Place-Based Community Connections

Applications and Actions

• Engage in Dialogue

• Accept responsibility for the consequences of design

• Design to optimize health and adaptability

Community Connections

• Co-design and implement short and long term projects and programs that are mutually beneficial to partners, are inclusive of all stakeholders and are participatory in nature

• Students and teachers make authentic contributions to sustainable community development through service learning opportunities, project-based and place based learning opportunities for students that are laterally and vertically embedded in the core curriculum