Welcome back updates (part 1)

It has been about a year since we’ve last posted and, as you can imagine, there is so much to share! Rather than bombard you with all of our updates at once, we are going to divide it into two posts with this one dedicated to the Fall of 2010.

The year started with an amazing team of eleven Fellows. We were fortunate enough to have three returning Fellows from the 2009 school year (Erin Frisk, Braden Kay, and Mark Woods) as well as the eight new ones (Lindsey Rose Allen, Edgar Cardenas, Nigel Forrest, Emily Freeman, Auriane Koster, Anna Krithis, Tamara Lawless, and Sandra Rodegher). Since the Fellows’ year started earlier than the public school year, they began preparing for work within high schools through the challenging task of creating week long lesson plans around various areas of focus in sustainability. These units included: Energy, Supply Chain Management, and Quality of Life. Not only were they honing their skills, but they were also beginning to develop a great resource for teachers to use in the classroom!

Once the school year started, our Fellows’ efforts spread out across Tempe, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Chandler. They continued working with our two returning schools, BioScience High School and Metro Tech High School in the Phoenix Union High School District, and started new efforts with Coronado High School in the Scottsdale Unified School District, Chandler High School in the Chandler Unified School District and Tempe High School in the Tempe Union High School District. The fellows enthusiastically jumped into their schools with both feet. In addition to simply getting familiar with the schools, teachers and students, they engaged in sustainability project development and worked with science and environmental clubs. They also collaborated with their teaching teams to assist in teaching sustainability lessons across diverse classrooms ranging from AP Environmental Science to English and Health. Some Fellows even had the opportunity to work with school leadership to integrate sustainability concepts throughout the entire school curriculum!

Next week we will tell you all about Spring 2011!