This activity helps students think about how we are all connected and how our actions impact others and the environment.
Recommended grades: 6 and up
Time: Three to four 45-60 minute class sessions
solutionaries
What Will You Say?
At the end of your very long life, a child asks you what you did to help make the world so much better. Guide students through this visualization to help them get in touch with their power to make positive change.
Recommended grades: 6 and up
Time: 10-20 minutes
Paul K. Chappell: Solutionary Spotlight
Introduction: Paul K. Chappell is an international peace educator, author, and founder of Peace Literacy. He graduated from West Point, was deployed to Iraq, and left active duty as a Captain. Realizing that humanity is facing new challenges that require us to become as well-trained in waging peace as soldiers are in waging war, Chappell…
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Transforming our Animal-based Food System: An Interview with Bruce Friedrich
Introduction: Bruce Friedrich is the Founder and CEO of the Good Food Institute (GFI). He is a TED Fellow, Y Combinator alum, 2021 “American Food Hero” (EatingWell Magazine), and popular speaker on food innovation. He has penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Wired, and many other publications. He has…
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Solutionary-focused education is the transformative approach we most need: An Interview with Katie Coppens
Introduction: Katie Coppens is an award-winning science teacher at Falmouth Middle School, the author of seven STEM-themed children’s books, and an experienced solutionary educator. In 2018 she participated in the Institute for Humane Education’s Solutionary Pilot Program, and her students shared their solutions to the problem of animal testing at our Solutionary Summit in Portland,…
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There’s a Path When Times Are Dark
I’m writing this post on the Winter Solstice – the longest night of the year. As I watched the sunrise this morning, and as the vermilion clouds put on the stunning show captured in this photograph, I felt my usual complex feelings on this day. The first day of winter, when we enter the coldest…
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Less work, more time to be a solutionary: An Interview with Veronika Perková
Veronika Perková is a Czech environmental journalist with bylines in BBC, Mongabay, and Earth Island Journal. She hosts a monthly, solutions-focused podcast, Nature Solutionaries, which tackles conservation and population issues. She is also the author of Ask Great Questions, Get Great Answers; a university lecturer on interviewing; and a wildlife illustrator. Zoe Weil: You’re a…
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What I Learned Sitting Next to Bob Dylan
When I was in my twenties, a friend and I went to a Tom Waits performance in Chicago. We had perfect center seats close to the front. But although the theater was packed, the two seats next to us were empty. As the theater darkened and the performance began, two people entered and took the…
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Educating for Sustainability: An Interview with Jaimie Cloud
Introduction: Jaimie P. Cloud is the founder and president of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education in New York City. The Cloud Institute is dedicated to the vital role of education in creating awareness, fostering commitment, and guiding actions toward a healthy, secure, and sustainable future for ourselves and for future generations. The Cloud Institute…
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Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation: An Interview with Ariane White, Ed.D., M.Ed.
Introduction: Ariane White began working in education in 2003 as a high school teacher before earning her M.Ed. degree with the Institute for Humane Education in 2010. She earned her doctoral degree in education from Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in 2019. LMU has recently launched a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Center, which…
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