Destination: Green Schools!
Sustainability Partnership Between EcoRise and Southwest Airlines Takes Off Across America
by Sarayu Adeni
What if young students, leading corporations, and the communities around them united to reach the green future we all want? One small non-profit organization from Texas, EcoRise Youth Innovations, is soaring to new heights this spring with the support of Southwest Airlines. Here’s how they’re empowering a new generation of green leaders across the world.
Sustainability leaders representing over 50 school districts throughout the United States participate in an EcoRise design challenge at the Green Schools National Conference, enabling them to envision how a partnership with EcoRise can boost local impact. [PHOTO CREDIT: EcoRise)
Step One: Reaching the Audience
Teachers and staff from EcoRise Youth Innovations landed at the March 2017 Green Schools Conference and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia, ready to present to hundreds of teachers, administrators and sustainability directors from across America’s school districts. Everyone there – hailing from NYC to San Francisco and everywhere in between – was committed to transforming ordinary schools into sustainability hubs, where your average backpacked student is also packing green leadership skills for the 21st century.
Enter EcoRise is a nonprofit organization that focuses on empowering youth to tackle real-world challenges by teaching sustainability, design thinking and innovation. EcoRise serves over 500 schools internationally, providing teachers access to K-12 curriculum that fosters student eco-literacy, connecting students to green professional mentors, and providing access to funding opportunities for student designed sustainability projects. Its flagship curriculum, Sustainable Intelligence, centers on building students’ knowledge and exploration around seven eco-themes: water, air quality, food, energy, waste, transportation and public spaces.
Step Two: Empowering schools to tell their stories
EcoRise participates in the 2017 Green Schools National Conference and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia. (left to right) Richard Kincaid (EcoRise Chief Innovation Officer), Darien Clary (Austin ISD Sustainability Manager), Tabitha Yeager (EcoRise Teacher Ambassador), Jon Stott (EcoRise Deputy Director) [PHOTO CREDIT: EcoRise)
“My students loved the opportunity to be outside, to be hands on, the ownership of the project to make their mark on the campus,” Yeager said of their campus garden project. “With a little bit of problem solving and brainstorming, we managed to make it something that everyone felt involved in.”
Yeager, an EcoRise Teacher Ambassador, was recently awarded $492,000 towards a campus Green Innovation Center by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker in recognition of her accomplishments.
Participating teachers were especially inspired to learn about building outside collaboration for students’ in-class work. “We left the presentation with a lot of great ideas we can implement,” said Meghan McCloskey, a teacher at Springdale Park Elementary, Atlanta Public Schools. But the presentation also appealed to broader audiences, including a number of green STEM professionals. “I loved the level of participant engagement,” said Rebecca Bryant, a LEED Accredited Professional at Water Shed Architects. “This was absolutely the best presentation of the conference.”
Other partners in the movement for a more sustainable world spoke up too – from success story-sharing by Codman Academy Charter School in Boston, MA to profile-raising on social platforms by MindRocket Media Group, to a policy making session with the Austin Independent School District.
EcoRise Executive Director Gina LaMotte talks about EcoRise curriculum, professional development, and student grants to a group of national sustainability leaders at the 2017 Green Schools National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. [PHOTO CREDIT:] EcoRise
Step Three: Join hands across sectors for the long-term
Another session pointed out the relevant need for activating entrepreneurial sustainability in Career Technical Education (CTE). EcoRise’s Chief Innovation Officer Richard Kincaid, along with Ismail Ocasio, Manager of Curriculum and Workforce Development for CTE at NYC Department of Education, and Mark Swiger, CEO and Founder of ReGen Creative Strategies, spoke about groundbreaking work at the state, district and school levels.
Over 30 student groups from 16 Austin, Texas area schools showcase their EcoRise sustainability projects at an annual City Hall Showcase. [PHOTO CREDIT: EcoRise)
Whether you’re a teacher, corporate leader, city planner, green professional, or an engaged citizen, support EcoRise in empowering a new generation of green leaders. After all, the next big plan to unite people, planet and profit could begin with one idea from a sustainability-savvy student asking: “What if?”
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This post includes mentions of a partner of MindRocket Media Group the parent company of edCircuit