New York

New York Charters Schools Association: www.nycsa.org 184 Charters Schools                                                    Contact: Bill Phillips bphillips@nycsa.org 518-694-3110

What is sustainability education?

New York’s New Roots Charter School offers an answer:

Our current social and environmental challenges have resulted from technologies, lifestyle choices, and ways of thinking that human beings have developed and passed down over centuries.  Facing these challenges will require an education that directly addresses them, helping tomorrow’s citizens to develop new technologies, new lifestyle choices, and new ways of thinking. In response to current global suffering and the consensus of the scientific community, the United Nations has declared 2005-2014 to be the Decade for Education for Sustainable Development, and has called for a complete rethinking of education to create the social change needed to bring our communities into balance with natural systems. Sustainability education supports young people in developing the knowledge, skills, and habits of mind and heart they will need to create sustainable communities that are in balance with the ecological systems that support us. Not simply environmental education, sustainability education integrates the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of the human endeavor, emphasizing the relationship between all three of these critical realms. Sustainability education emphasizes building young people’s competence as systems thinkers, who are able to understand the complex dynamics of the contemporary human-earth situation, and respond wisely to our collective challenges.

Please contact the Green Charter Schools Network to share information and links to green charter school resources in New York.

NEW GREEN CHARTER SCHOOLS

Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School: www.metropolitanels.com

Evergreen Charter School: www.ecsli.org