MindUp is a product of The Hawn Foundation and was developed to help children build personal resilience, develop positive behavior, and improve learning and scholastic performance. Grounded in the pillars of Neuroscience, Positive Psychology, Mindful Behavior, and Social-Emotional Learning, the program consists of 15 lessons that are tailored to a child’s age group and development level. Each lesson offers students mindful strategies that can increase self-control, focus, empathy, and optimism. Visit the MindUp website to learn more about the lessons, pricing, and to view related research and white papers.

Mindful Schools is nonprofit training organization that offers online and in-person courses, multimedia content, informative articles, and a network of mindful educators spanning all 50 U.S. states and 100+ countries.

The In Defense of Food curriculum is a companion to the PBS documentary In Defense of Food, using activities and film clips to give students tools to think critically about food. Students learn why it is important to eat healthfully, investigate how food companies influence their food choices, and create action plans for changing their eating habits. They become motivated to eat real food, and excited to share what they have learned with their family, friends, and community. The curriculum is designed for middle school after-school programs, and can be adapted for students from age ten through adulthood in a wide range of settings.

HealthCorps is a nonprofit that gives teens tools to improve physical and mental health so they can learn to live more productive and happier lives. The organization offers two programs: Living Labs, where a HealthCorps Coordinator is placed inside a high need high school to teach wellness related classes; and HealthCorps University, which provides one to two day professional development trainings in the HealthCorps curriculum for educators and key organizational personnel.

HealthCorps’ curriculum provides turnkey skills to integrate health and wellness into an organization’s current programming, and represents lessons from over a decade of work and research in many of America’s most challenging high schools. The curriculum has been refined and developed since 2003, is aligned to National Health Education Standards, and has been vetted through a board of medical experts. The curriculum is free and can be downloaded from HealthCorps’ website, where you can also read about program success stories, view videos, and find healthy recipes.

FoodSpan is a free, downloadable high school curriculum that highlights critical issues in the food system; stimulates debate about food system topics related to human health, the environment, equity, and animal welfare; and empowers students to be food citizens. It is aligned to national education standards in science, social studies, health, and family and consumer sciences. This curriculum was developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future as an outgrowth of its work to help build a healthier, more equitable, and more resilient food system.

Empowering Education is a nonprofit dedicated to bringing comprehensive, mindfulness-based social-emotional learning to K-12 schools. Their products and services include: a standards-aligned, evidence-based K-8 curriculum Empowering Minds; engaging professional development opportunities; school-wide implementation guidance and coaching; school-family partnership assistance and programming; and Whole Child support consulting. Free samples lessons are available on their website.

ChopChop Kids, the publisher of ChopChop Magazine, was founded in 2010 to inspire and teach children and families to cook real food together. Through its namesake magazine, ChopChop reaches more than two million families annually. The magazine is available in English and Spanish and offers nutritious, great-tasting, ethnically diverse, and inexpensive recipes, as well as interesting and little-known food facts, Q&As, and games. The magazine is distributed to schools to teach students about food, cooking, nutrition, and health. A complementary curriculum has been developed with classroom activities, printables, and lessons in math, science, ELA, and social studies that are aligned to national standards.

The Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin – Madison conducts rigorous scientific research to bring new insights and tools aimed at improving the well-being of people of all backgrounds and ages, including children in K-12 school settings.

CLEAR partners with education systems to create and sustain trauma–informed models of practice that support integration of trauma informed practices into the school environment. Visit CLEAR’s website to learn more about this unique professional development opportunity, see a list of schools implementing the CLEAR model, and obtain more information about child trauma on their resource webpage. You can also download this CLEAR Trauma-Informed Schools White Paper: A Selected Review of Trauma-Informed School Practice and Alignment with Educational Practice.

CASEL is the world’s leading organization advancing one of the most important fields in education: the practice of promoting integrated academic, social, and emotional learning for all children, from preschool through high school. Visit their website for case studies, research, policy, and resources (including guides, videos, book recommendations, and informative materials) on integrating social-emotional learning in schools.

The Active Design Toolkit for Schools provides ideas and resources to incorporate active design into schools. Although the toolkit was developed to inform school design in New York City, many of the ideas presented in the toolkit can be adapted for use by schools anywhere in the country to improve the success, health, and well-being of their students. The toolkit was developed by the Partnership for a Healthier New York City in collaboration with New York City’s Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene, Education, and Transportation.

Green Schools Alliance is an international organization that advances student success and saves schools resources by fostering whole school sustainability. Originally developed as a network created by schools for schools, the Alliance has evolved to provide integrated and organized support to students, school professionals, schools, and districts to foster sustainability work. Alliance programs are scaled and developed from member ideas to make them more accessible for other member schools. The Alliance conducts work via its international coalition of schools, rooted in the idea that collaboration among schools brings the greatest change for sustainable learning environments and communities. They:

•promote student success through leadership training, project-based learning, and a support system. •inspire school professionals through access to training, resources, and a community of fellow sustainability champions.
•provide schools with tools to accelerate whole school sustainability efforts through collective purchasing power, access to resources, and reporting and recognition systems.
•offer districts the programs to leverage high-volume purchasing power, foster collaborative communication, and gather system-wide information on school efforts.

At EcoRise, we believe in the power of teachers to ignite innovation and the potential of students to design a sustainable future for all. Our school-based program empowers youth to tackle real-world challenges in their schools and communities by teaching sustainability, design innovation, and social entrepreneurship. Over 350 schools have implemented our full program and 1,800 teachers in 26 countries have accessed our educational materials. Our curriculum, classroom grants, ongoing training, and support engages educators and students in meaningful learning experiences. Our program empowers teachers to confidently champion sustainability and innovation in their classroom, while students cultivate 21st century skills and sustainable living practices.

We offer:

• Online and in-person professional development, curriculum, and self-paced resources for green industry connections to K–12 educators, STEM educators, and Project-Based Learning teachers.
• For U.S.-based schools, we award micro grants to student-designed sustainability projects.
• Our committed partnership with like-minded institutions and corporate supporters to expand reach and impact.

Garden clubs around the country partner with schools to help children plan and maintain school gardens. Various programs include the Pollinators Live program, which engages students and teachers in creating diverse school gardens that incorporate native plants to attract bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other native pollinators. Learn more about National Garden Clubs' programming for schools.

The Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation or CELF (www.celfeducation.org) provides consulting services, training programs, and educational programs for teachers, students, and communities to promote sustainability education in K-12 curriculum, decision-making, civic engagement, community partnerships, and school campus practices. Both standard and customized programs are available.

The NOAA Office of Education has issued a competitive funding opportunity for education projects designed to strengthen K-12 students’ environmental literacy so they can make informed decisions for community resilience to extreme weather events and other environmental hazards. Successful projects will advance NOAA’s mission and build the environmental literacy necessary for community resilience by focusing on geographic awareness and an understanding of Earth systems and the threats and vulnerabilities that are associated with a community’s location. Proposed projects should be 2-5 years long and have total budget requests of $250,000 to $500,000 for the duration of the project.

Project Orange Thumb, sponsored by Fiskars, is dedicated to supporting the community garden movement throughout the U.S. and Canada. Fiskars’ Project Orange Thumb garden grants provide tools and resources to help communities reach their goals for neighborhood beautification, community collaboration, and healthy, sustainable food sources. Project Orange Thumb is intended to promote new garden spaces and garden expansions. Nonprofit organizations, public schools, and municipalities in the U.S. and Canada are eligible to apply.

Learning about John Muir’s life can serve as a launching pad to environmental studies from a variety of perspectives. Botany, geology, history, geography, language arts, visual arts, and more can be inspired by John Muir, as we discover that, as John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” These lesson plans are aligned with the California Academic Content Standards, but can be adapted to meet other state standards as needed.

Action for Healthy Kids has provided $6.6 million in grants to schools since 2009. Our School Grants for Healthy Kids can help your school health team achieve its goal to make every kid healthy and ready to learn. Two types of grants are available: School Breakfast Grants and Game on Grants.

GSCE brings together hundreds of teachers, students, facility managers, nonprofit partners, business leaders and sustainability advocates for two days of engaging educational sessions, inspiring speakers, networking, workshops and tours in support of green schools.

The Aldo Leopold Foundation was established to inspire an ethical relationship between people and land through the legacy of Aldo Leopold. The foundation offers a broad spectrum of educational materials and tools that teachers can use in their classrooms, including the Leopold Education Project, an interdisciplinary environmental education and conservation curriculum. Check out the website for a full listing of available resources.

Project Learning Tree® (PLT), a national environmental education program for PreK-12 educators, offers GreenWorks! grants up to $1,000 to schools and youth organizations for environmental service-learning projects that link classroom learning to the real world. Students implement an action project they help design to green their school or to improve an aspect of their neighborhood’s environment. The projects partner students with their whole school, local businesses and/or community organizations, and provide opportunities for student leadership. The funds can be used by students to implement recycling programs at their school, conserve water and energy, or establish school gardens and outdoor classrooms, for example. To be eligible to apply, an educator must have attended a PLT training, either in-person or online, that also provides them with PLT lesson plans and other resources to help integrate these projects and environmental education into their curriculum.

The Schoolyard Habitat program guidebook is a tool that takes teachers and administrators through the process of creating schoolyard habitat and outdoor classroom projects. The guide covers everything from concept to completion: developing a plan, choosing a site, design and installation, maintenance, and how to incorporate the space into the curriculum. The guide is available in Spanish as well.

In Teaching in Nature’s Classroom: Core Principles of Garden-Based Education, Nathan Larson shares a philosophy of teaching in the garden. Rooted in years of experience and supported by research, Larson presents fifteen guiding principles of garden-based education. These principles and best practices are illustrated through engaging stories from the field. The book features vivid paintings by mural artist Becky Redelings and connections to the research literature provided by Alex Wells and Sam Dennis of the University of Wisconsin Environmental Design Lab. This publication was supported through a partnership between Community GroundWorks and the Environmental Design Lab at the University of Wisconsin -Madison. Funding for this project was provided by the Wisconsin Partnership Program at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Since 1996, the National Wildlife Federation has worked to assist schools in the creation of Schoolyard Habitats®, which create and restore wildlife habitat on school grounds while providing outdoor classrooms for learning across the curriculum. There are currently over 5,000 schools and counting that have been certified through this program.

This report documents the journeys and lessons of green schoolyard programs across the country and is informed by a rich dialogue that has been taking place at the national and local levels about how to help children, families, schools, communities, and our environments thrive. It shares information and stories, as well as tangible steps communities can take to develop their own green schoolyards.

This educational website is the online version of the Emmy-winning television series, offering free science videos and companion lesson activities for expanded learning in classrooms. Categories include energy science, farm science, environmental science, life science, natural resource science, health science, and physical science.