Professional Development
for Educators
The Sustainable Development Goals & Systems Thinking Tools
Provide your students with the tools necessary to understand complex issues, find leverage points for change and take action for a sustainable future. In this workshop educators will explore systems thinking tools and how to apply these tools in their lessons to help students understand complex global issues. Educators will develop a deeper understanding of the U.N Sustainable Development Goals and how to structure units of inquiry that lead to students taking action.
Nature as Designer & Teacher - Introduction to Biomimicry
In this workshop participants will be introduced to the concept of biomimicry and explore best practices for learning from nature. This course will help provide a bigger purpose for STEM/STEAM learning and will inquire into current biomimetic innovations. Teachers will leave this course with practical tools to enhance their lessons from learning about nature, to learning from nature.
Designing for Sustainability - Zero Waste Approaches to STEM, ADST & Makerspace Learning
Educators will be introduced to circular economy design principles and participate in design challenges that will provoke thinking and problem solving. Participants will discover how material constraints lead to creativity, innovation and sustainable design. Using new knowledge, we will critique and “circularify” common STEM challenges. The big ideas behind such programs in schools will be discussed and educators will explore how these programs can be a catalyst for service learning and sustainability within the school community.
Learning Gardens - Growing Inquiry &
Eco Literacy in the garden
Revive your school garden to increase productivity and learning in the garden. Educators will apply permaculture principles to existing gardens and design new and engaging learning experiences to improve eco-literacy and provide students with the skills and knowledge of regenerative urban gardening for climate resilience.
"I really enjoyed the workshop! I am most excited about the iceberg model to look at events, as I think it could be widely applied to look at cause and consequence. I hope to be able to use some systems thinking in my grade 7 climate change science unit. I was already familiar with systems thinking from a biological systems point of view, but some big take aways were applying it to a wider variety of topics/subjects, and tools to make it approachable at the middle school level. "
Erika S.
Ecole Intermediaire
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"Thanks for an awesome workshop, Jackie! I had no idea the SDGs existed until doing a masters program that wove the SDGs through much of our coursework. I’ve been trying to figure out how to make these big global projects make sense for my grade 6s, and it’s a relief to see that you and others have already done so much thinking and experimenting."
Shawn W.
Central Middle School
"I am excited to use the sustainable development goals to help build my student’s background knowledge of what is needed to make decisions as a whole (grade 6 curriculum big idea) to come up with solutions on how countries can work together for climate change. To see the interconnectedness of the goals is helpful and these tools will help build a better picture before we go into our mock UN Climate summit. Thanks!"
Joy N.
Monterey Middle School
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"I must say that the session was wonderful, learners at Podar International School Mumbai were extremely excited. The informative brainstorming session with you helped our learners to
dive further into their inquiry."
Kanchana C.
Poder International School Mumbia