BLOG ABOUT IT

Post discussions on our blog! 

It is a great way to diversify and contribute to our knowledge,  a commons that we all benefit so much from!

CONNECT

Stay connected to the work we're doing in your community.

Read our blog, join our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter!

GET FEATURED

For those of you who are  organizing events in your communities, we would love to feature your work in our “Voices of Change” section. 

To submit your materials or be interviewed, please contact, Moira Wilkinson

SUPPORT

Help us continue to build strong learning communities around the country.

Join our Circle of Friends now and take the first step toward contributing to lasting transformation in our young leaders!

EVENTS

5-Day NJ Learns Keystone Year Workshop

July 25th-29th | 9am-5pm

BOOKSTORE

View the Cloud Bookstore for EfS units of study, curricula, design tools and more...

July 11, 2011

Our bi-monthly New Jersey Learns Newsletter is the perfect place to continue to enrich your involvement with Education for Sustainability. This newsletter is a place to share ideas, take action, and hear stories of change from our leaders. 

IN THIS ISSUE...

• Thought for the Season
  Learning and Changing

• Voices from the Field
  NJ Learns: Your Voices, Your Field

• Opportunities
  Sustainable Jersey Complete Streets Workshop; Lakewood Blue Claws "Nine Innings for Nature"; Green Festival New York

THOUGHT FOR THE SEASON

Learning and Changing

Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong.    –Albert Einstein

It can be easy to lose sight of the reality that learning of any kind IS an opportunity. I suppose it gets hard for people to hold on to that perspective because so much of the learning that we get to do as adults is in the service of some other “bigger” goal. And, more often than not, that goal isn’t even one we set for ourselves, but dictated by someone or something else’s needs. It makes sense, then, as Mr. Einstein points out, that the opportunity “study” presents might get disguised as an obligation for many of our peers. 

That’s less true for the members of the NJ Learns Community. Not knowing everyone, I can make that statement with some certainty simply because you all sought out the chance to participate in this program; many of you more than once. I can also say that because we have proof, as you’ll see further down. As social entrepreneurs and leaders, each of you is able to plug into the inherent curiosity and joy that comes from discovering something new and because of that, the work you do in your communities IS richer. (I can say that with confidence, too, because you all call to tell me the good and not-so-good news when you take a risk. So, until you start to see for yourselves exactly how inspiring you all are, you’ll have to trust me: What you’re doing is really hopeful!)  

At the Cloud Institute, we approach learning with that same eagerness--for ourselves and for the work we do to shift toward sustainability. You know we love to read the feedback. So, when the Dodge Foundation asked us to do an external evaluation of NJ Learns to show what kind of bang for the buck they’re getting, we jumped at the chance to learn what you’re thinking, too. Between January and February, about 70 percent of you responded to the surveys the research consultants sent and many did additional interviews with them to share your insights. When we got the results in the beginning of May, we couldn’t have been more pleased to see just how MUCH you’re doing to Educate for Sustainability and also to learn more about what you’d like from US to assist in your efforts. This newsletter is dedicated to sharing with you the results of the evaluation and to unveiling some new and improved tools for you to use as we all move toward our shared goal of sustainability. 

You can read PEER Associate’s full program evaluation report, The Cloud Institute New Jersey Learns (NJ Learns) Program 2011, here, or the Executive Summary of it here. Those documents cover the findings from the whole evaluation—which are very positive and totally interesting. Good reads! You’ll find the highlights from those documents in the Voices from the Field section.

VOICES FROM THE FIELD
 

NJ Learns: Your Voices, Your Field

“My knowledge was fairly good of…Sustainability…so I did have some basis, but in terms of EfS and some of the Systems Thinking portions, I didn’t have the formal knowledge. NJ Learns provided that, connected things I already knew, and allowed me to go deeper. It was inspiring – I think we all felt hugely invigorated – and it sparked a lot of curiosity and excitement.”

- NJ Learns Level 2 Participant

This space is reserved for stories from you, by you, about things you’re doing. This time, we’re using the space to share the biggest take-aways from the evaluation. You’re still the authors this time around, just that your collective voice is coming through the report.

Three parts of the report focused on what you said you learned from NJ Learns, changes in your attitudes and behaviors, and what you’re doing to apply your knowledge about EfS. The last part was devoted to the operation of the program itself. According to the report, people “indicated that the NJ Learns program was very effective overall” and four themes emerged relative to the program’s growth and improvement.

See what you requested here

Green Festival is excited to bring the largest sustainability event to the greatest city on the East Coast, Manhattan New York. This Green Festival New York debut will deliver both inspiring and pragmatic programming reflecting over 125 international, regional and local speakers presenting keynotes, workshops, sessions, demonstrations and talks. At Green Festival, New Yorkers will find the largest marketplace made up of over 300 screened, fair trade, social and environmentally responsible exhibitors. Great live music, weekend-long film festival, cutting edge fun kids program, extraordinary vegan, raw and vegetarian food vendors, top local organic beer makers and wine vintners and an eco-fashion runway round out the festivities. Join us for what is sure to become New York's finest ‘Party with a Purpose’! Click here for more information regarding Green Festival New York

307 Seventh Avenue Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001 ph. 212.645.9930 fax 212.645.9931 www.cloudinstitute.org