Blog: Cultivating header

9 Strategies for Cultivating Empathy and Compassion in Your Classroom

by Marsha Rakestraw To create a just, compassionate, sustainable world for all – and to help our students become solutionaries — it’s vital that we help them (and ourselves) build empathy and compassion for people, animals, and the earth. We humans are wired to care about those with whom we have close relationships (our family,…

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Saving Animals and Empowering People Through Humane Education: An Interview With Tod Emko

Tod Emko is a conservationist from New York City. While Emko’s “day job” is as a web developer for Blue State Digital, a cause-oriented agency that managed both Obama Presidential campaigns online, he spends a lot of his time as an educator and changemaker. After having crewed with Sea Shepherd Global for several years, Emko…

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Embracing Compassion Toward All: An Interview With Author Mark Hawthorne

Mark Hawthorne is an activist and the author of three books on animal rights and social justice: A Vegan Ethic: Embracing A Life Of Compassion Toward All; Bleating Hearts: The Hidden World of Animal Suffering; and Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism, which empowers people around the world to get active…

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Ethical Work

Ethical Work

Resources and tips for finding and creating more meaningful, fulfilling work (both paid and unpaid) for a better world.  

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Apps for a better world

Apps for a Better World

Smartphone apps focused on making more ethical choices are proliferating. Find suggested apps to help you make choices that do more good and less harm for people, animals, and the earth. Save

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civil rights march

Resources for Integrating Social Justice Into Your Classroom

by Marsha Rakestraw As we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., and his legacy, today, it’s important to remember that, with global challenges growing and violence, injustice, cruelty and destruction flourishing, it’s vital that we address issues of social justice (human rights, environmental preservation, animal protection, media, culture, and changemaking) with students — to help them…

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Cassandra Sheffman

I Am a Humane Educator: Cassandra Scheffman

by Marsha Rakestraw IHE M.Ed. graduate Cassandra Scheffman was raised with a love of animals and the natural world. She has worked in the environmental nonprofit sector, taught high school and as an environmental educator, and now works as the associate director of adult programs at the First Unitarian Church of Portland in Oregon. Cassandra…

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Ivy Mandy Liat

I Am a Humane Educator: Ivy, Mandy, and Liat

Last year Ivy and Liat, students at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, connected with Mandy Schmidt, an IHE M.Ed. student, to develop a humane education summer camp for students in Hefei, China. Ivy (Chang) He, is an international student from Heifei, and founded the group Humaneness 101. Liat Yael Kastner is studying environmental studies and…

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humane education

Resources for Funding Your Humane Education or Changemaking Project

by Marsha Rakestraw You’re passionate about creating a better world. You have a great idea. But what you lack is the funding to implement your project. Many a great changemaking idea has been stifled by the challenge of finding funding. And in the past, options were limited and often a bit complicated. But with the…

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pollinator garden

Northwoods Elementary Students Become Solutionaries for a Better World

by Elizabeth O. Crawford, Ph.D. “Do you think our garden will help bees pollinate fruits and vegetables?” a second grader from Northwoods Elementary (Jacksonville, NC) asked excitedly. On Friday, May 15, Northwoods broke ground on its first pollinator garden, the culminating event of a semester-long humane education project with the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s…

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