Ecoliteracy

“Never give children a chance of imagining 
that anything exists in isolation.
 Make it plain from the very first
that all living is relationship.
Show them relationships in the woods,
in the fields, in the ponds and streams,
in the village and the country around it.
Always teach the science of relationship
in conjunction with the ethics of relationship.
Elementary ecology leads
straight to elementary Buddhism”
– Aldous Huxley


The Center for Ecoliteracy has released a new suite of free digital resources that explores the links b
etween food and climate change. The focus of the resources is systems thinking, an approach that illuminates how seemingly disconnected phenomena are often dynamically linked and can be understood best when viewed in a larger context.

Understanding Food and Climate Change: An Interactive Guide uses text, video, photography, and interactive experiences to help children visualize how food and climate interact and to help cultivate their ecoliteracy.

Ideal for grades 6-12, and connected to Next Generation Science Standards and the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies themes, the guide offers activities for student research and extensive resources for further investigation.

According to Alice Waters, founder of The Edible Schoolyard Project, “Teaching children how climate change impacts the food we grow and eat has never been more important. The Center for Ecoliteracy has done a wonderful job of synthesizing many critical issues into this highly useable teaching tool, and they have made it available for free. I hope Understanding Food and Climate Change will be used in classrooms across the country. A sustainable future for the planet depends upon the edible and environmental education of every child.”

The entire suite of educational aids is available for free HERE