Curricula are like tools: in the right hands magic happens, learning is made relevant, and learners are inspired. Deploying diverse instructional resources so students can build upon their own interests, life knowledge, and place in the world is especially important...
It’s January. The holidays are over. A new year has begun. It’s the time when people who love the cold or snow are relishing winter while folks like myself are pining for the light and warmth of spring. It’s no...
My college roommate, a brilliant and utterly decent guy, became a top geologist for the petroleum industry. I became an environmental activist. We’re still friends. I’ll call him Rick. His job is to help clients make money by finding and...
It’s that time of year. Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and hopefully you will be happily surrounded by family and friends, enjoying a delicious meal, participating in rich conversation and thinking about what you are most thankful for. As...
I spent the third week of October with my 6th grade students in the Santa Cruz Mountains, learning about poison oak and banana slugs, compost and food waste, gardening and invasive plant species, and how ecosystems change as one moves...
In fall of 2013, California’s State Board of Education (SBE) adopted a slightly modified version of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)* intended to reinvent science education in the state. This adoption triggered a series of events that can lead...
In 2010 when I stepped down from my long-term position as principal of the K-12 Head-Royce in Oakland, I set out on a journey to help grow greener, more sustainable schools. Aware of all that I needed to learn, I...
I know wildfires are good for a forest, and play a necessary natural role in maintaining our ecosystem. However, as I think about the magnificent Purisima Creek redwoods towering over me during a mountain bike trek last weekend, or a...
The 1983 release of the National Commission on Excellence in Education report, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform, marks the starting point of the education reform movement that today, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future will drive...
Sometimes it is best to start near the beginning and, in my case, that was a youth spent chasing butterflies, catching frogs, and fishing in nearby lakes. By the time I finished high school and entered UCLA, my passion took...
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