Examples of Creative Change's Work with K-12 Schools

     What actually happens in a Creative Change workshop? What do teachers do in the classroom after participating in our programs? How does this impact student learning? View examples of our work and learn how our innovative approach to content and pedagogy can benefit your school. Choose examples of programs, teacher unit, or student work.

Examples of customized professional development programs

Examples of teacher-created units

Examples of student work

• Weeklong Institutes: In partnership with the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation, we facilitate week-long institutes that provide teachers with content knowledge, pedagogical strategies and guided planning to reframe curriculum around sustainability:
  • See an agenda (PDF) and highlights from the 2006 summer institute.
  • See an overview of the 2007 Scarsdale (NY) Teachers' Institute (PDF)
  • See examples of teacher-created units resultings from these programs (below)
  • Learn more about our professional development programs.
    
    
    
• Project SUSTAIN: This 18-month initiative, developed and managed for the Ypsilanti Public Schools, focused on improving student achievement through sustainability education. The project included professional development, support to teachers as they created unit "makeovers", and evaluation.

View detailed descriptions of units and unit "makeovers" created by teachers in our customized professional development programs. Most examples are downloadable in PDF format.

Elementary school examples

• 4th grade unit on communities (This shows an example of the type of feedback we provide to teachers as they create their units. PDF)
• 4th grade interdisciplinary unit focused on biomes and ecosystems (PDF)
• 5th grade unit makeover on the Ecological Footprint (PDF)
• Strategies to integrate sustainability into grades K-5 science instruction (PDF)
• 4th-5th grade course on food systems (PDF)
• 5th grade math unit integrating sustainability (PDF)

Middle school examples

• 6th grade science unit makeover (PDF)
• 6th grade language arts units on sustainability and culture (PDF)
• Summary of a 6th grade science unit on wetlands and water quality
• Middle school Spanish unit integrating sustainability (PDF)
• Middle school interdisciplinary (science-social studies) unit (PDF)
• Summary of a 7th grade civics unit: "Planning for Redevelopment"
• Summary of an 8th grade unit: "Nike: Is What You See What You Get?"
• 8th grade physical education unit emphasizing cooperative learning (PDF)
• Summary of an 8th grade language arts unit: "Affluenza: An In-depth Look into Consumer Culture, its Causes and Effects”
• Summary of an 8th grade literature unit: "Resources, Population, and the Future"

High school examples

• Science unit on sustainability and global cultures (PDF)
• Summary of a 9th grade unit integrating science, civics, and language arts: "Environmental Impacts of Housing and Transportation Choices"
• Classroom activity for grades 7-12: "High Road or Low Road? A Role Play on Globalization"

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Student work, organized by content area

View short examples of student work on different sustainability topics. Each content area shows examples from different grade levels.

• Economics for the Common Good
• The Ecological Footprint
• Land Use and Sustainable Communities
• Sustainable Food System

All examples created as a result of teachers participating in Creative Change's programs on economics and product life cycles.

• 9th grade student project: "Oil Spills are Good For Us: Rethinking the Gross Domestic Product"
• 9th grade student research on economic subsidies
• 9th grade student project: newsletter about sustainable economics
• 9th grade student research on the World Trade Organization
• 5th grade media project: "Why am I Smiling? Talking Back to Ads"
• "Who Gets More?"” A two-part poem about NAFTA created by a 5th grade student

• Classroom activity: "The Global Income Distribution: Where do you sit?"
• High school student project: "Population and Poverty: Understanding the relationship"
• 6th grade student work: "When Was Your Lunch Born?" Mapping the Resources that Support Us"

• See examples of students' brownfield redevelopment plans from the program "Our Town," a high school curriculum on brownfields redevelopment.

Learn about "Lessons from the Land," our high school program on land use and sustainable communities

• 9th grade student project: "Farm-opoly: The Game of Farming and Debt"
• 9th grade research project: "Community-Supported Agriculture"
• 9th grade research project: "Grassroots Approaches to Development"

Learn more about our programs on food systems.

View a description of a 4th-5th grade course on food systems created by a teacher in the 2006 Summer Institute sponsored by the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation, with facilitation by Creative Change.

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