Issue No.154
Newsletter of the American Forum for Global Education
1999

 

 

   
Green Teacher Magazine is a leading promoter of global and environmental awareness in schools throughout North America and beyond. This quarterly publication is full of practical articles, activities, resources, book reviews and ideas for rethinking education and classroom practice to incorporate global and environmental education.The Green Teacher web site<www.web.net/~greentea/> contains back issues of the magazine and abundant links to the schools and projects that have been featured in the magazine. Subscriptions are $22 for one year.

Just Food fosters understanding, communication and partnership among diverse groups concerned with farming, hunger and sustainability. Their programs develop community leadership, support regional farms, boost local food production, preserve clean and open spaces, develop educational materials for schools and communities, and create jobs. Their web site <www.justfood.org> is still under construction, but already contains much useful information about sustainable food systems in the New York area.

The Green Map System (GMS) was founded to strengthen the community's awareness of and connection to the urban ecology through locally-created visual representations of hometown environments. Mixing the ancient art of mapmaking with new, interactive media, citizens of all ages are invited to adapt and employ GMS's award-winning visual language, a set of 125+ Icons that symbolize different types of urban green sites. The GMS web site <www.greenmap.org> contains abundant information on mapmaking for adults and youth, including links to all green mapmakers as well as other environmental organizations.

Redefining Progress seeks to shift the prevailing definition of progress from one based on a simplistic focus on a growing economy to one that resonates with peoples' deeper sense of the quality of their own lives. On their web site <www.rprogress.org> you can find examples of their important work on quality of life "indicators.” You can also find an explanation of the "ecological footprint” program which SEC and Redefining Progress are currently adapting for use with selected SEC-affiliated schools.

The New York Healthy Schools Network is quickly becoming a national leader in promoting healthy school buildings and grounds. Their web site <www.hsnet.org>

contains resource guides, information on their Healthy Schools Poster campaign, and suggestions for parents and teachers seeking to combat poor building conditions and renovations undertaken without proper precautions for protecting students' health.

The Center for a New American Dream helps individuals and institutions reduce and shift consumption to enhance the quality of our life and protect the environment. The Center's web site <www.newdream.org> covers topics from business and transportation to religion and food systems, all within a framework that promotes healthier, simpler lifestyles.

The Natural Step (TNS) works to build an ecologically and economically sustainable society, recognizing that what happens in one part of the globe affects every other part, often in unexpected ways. Through its programs and web site <www.naturalstep.org>, TNS offers a pragmatic framework based on science that can be used to guide social, environmental and economic actions. Of special note are the "Four System Conditions” that are compromised or ignored only at our own peril. The conditions (as well as interpretive remarks from Jaimie Cloud) appear below:

1st Systems Condition: Substances from the Earth's crust must not systematically increase in nature. (In other words, we cannot extract the Earth's natural resources faster than the Earth is able to absorb/sequester those natural resources.)

2nd Systems Condition: Substances produced by society must not systematically increase in nature. (In other words, we cannot make garbage out of natural resources faster than the Earth's capacity to turn the garbage back into natural resources.)

3rd Systems Condition: The physical basis for the productivity and diversity of nature must not systematically be diminished. (In other words, we must not jeopardize the capacity of our ecosystem to provide us, and all living beings on the planet, with the services upon which our lives, our health and our livelihoods depend.)

4th Systems Condition: We must be fair and efficient in meeting basic human needs. (In other words, our economic and social systems must not jeopardize our ability to meet the first three systems conditions, nor compromise the ability of people in this generation and in generations yet to come to meet their own basic needs.)

In sum, we must learn the answers to the following questions: What doesn't go away? What doesn't come back? And then act accordingly...