• Learn how to teach sustainability concepts while equipping students with 21st century skills and real-world application strategies. Get ideas on how you can use data to empower student action, and learn how to craft projects that increase sustainability literacy and encourage environmental stewardship.

• See how you can use nature in teaching science and writing. Our "Living Labs: Teaching in the Great Outdoors" session track equips you with a toolkit of new teaching habits that are designed to immerse your students in the natural world.

• Explore how to address math and literacy standards while exposing students to nutritious eating habits. Learn how you can make lessons in gardening, the environment and nutrition relevant to students of all levels. Come away equipped with a model lesson that can be calibrated to fit your students.

• Increase student engagement. Use the context of the entire school environment and community at large to learn how to make sustainability cross-curricular, student-centered and empowering for learners of all ages.

• Create a sustainability mindset in your school community. Learn to use Visible Thinking Routines and Human-Centered Design to create a mindset of sustainability in your school community.

• Learn how you can encourage sustainability at your school. Explore how to face challenges regarding integrating sustainability within current education standards and among diverse opinions about its value in our public schools.

• Discover strategies that enhance staff and student health through the built environment. Gain insight and key lessons in expanding administrative policies regarding wellness and sustainability using the framework of the WELL Building Standard.

• Understand the mechanics of high-performance school environments. Learn how to leverage space as the “third teacher” to positively influence students' physical, mental and emotional health. Hear from experts about the architectural concepts that emphasize quality light, color, materials and acoustics.

• Learn what it takes to build successful school–community partnerships to lead a school toward sustainability. Learn how to develop strong guiding principles that help all stakeholders filter important information, discuss options and consider educational models to support the best interest of the community.

• Explore how sustainability can align with curriculum- and facilities-related decisions. Learn how to achieve high collaborative leadership within a school district, and about approaches and strategic partnerships that promote sustainability.

• Embrace lessons learned by other school districts around strategic energy management. Learn to track data and take on financing challenges, behavior change, and community engagement in your school or district.

• Learn how to implement an effective district waste management program. Gain insight into school recycling, composting and other waste management efforts from the custodial perspective, including challenges that arise from the various circumstances facing facilities across the country. 

• Discover how to optimize the connection between energy efficiency, student behavior and hands-on education. Learn how to balance school population growth with energy demands in a way that engages students and is sustainable and cost-effective. 

• Learn to tackle some of the greatest roadblocks to innovative school construction. They include mixing public and private funding, working within public school regulatory environments, balancing participatory design and the realities of getting a building constructed by looking at the whole campus rather than a single building as the organizing focus, and implementing “bleeding edge” construction technologies that are new even to construction partners. 

• Learn how to work in tandem with school food professionals to reduce waste and associated costs. Explore examples of programs for reduction, recovery and recycling and the positive impact these programs have. Discuss how to reduce costs and the environmental impact of handling food and packaging throughout the full cycle of feeding children in school.

Captain Planet and Greening Forward, with the support of the Center for Green Schools at USGBC, brought together youth to learn from a dynamic line-up of change makers about how to make an impact in their schools and communities.

At the Student Summit, participants learned about available tools to help them find their voice for change — through art, media, research, politics, design, business and more.

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