The brain science around storytelling suggests that if we want students to really learn what we're teaching (in any content area), stories are a key strategy for evoking engagement, embedding information into our memories and creating compassion and trust in our classroom. This isn't an add-on but an essential way we can reframe our curriculum so it is meaningful and purposeful for our students.

Connecting with nature is key for helping our students develop a passion for conservation and sustainability. If your school campus is in a green area, it might seem easier to align learning experiences with time outside. For teachers in urban settings, this may feel like a challenge, but nature and outdoor educator Kenny Peavy feels every educator can find ways of connecting nature to classroom learning, either by finding pockets of accessible nature or by bringing outdoor elements inside the classroom.

Digital storytelling can take SO many different forms in a school setting. It can be super simple and involve a classroom assignment that involves photography or animation. It can take shape as a classroom or grade-level website. And digital storytelling can also involve a team of educators, students and leaders to encompass a school-wide storytelling platform.

d'Arcy Lunn is a passionate and purposeful changemaker who is the founder of Teaspoons of Change. In this video interview, you’ll be inspired by d’Arcy’s approach to sustainable living and you may want to share this video with your high school students!

When it comes to sustainability, food is a topic most people can relate to and understand. We all eat, and some of us grow gardens, cook, bake and think a lot about food. And, over the last number of decades, our food options have exploded, allowing us many more choices than our grandparents or great-grandparents imagined possible.

In September, two grade 5 teachers from St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, wondered if they could create a digital storytelling platform to create deep learning and engagement for students as well as awareness and action in the school community. Three months after their initial idea, they launched Impact, a purposeful and powerful digital storytelling hub for students, teachers, parents and other members of the St. Andrew's community.

If you’d like some posters for your classroom featuring stages of service learning, key reflection questions and Project Zero’s 3 Y’s, please download the posters I created for a colleague this past week.

Reflection is a key, foundational component to service learning and global citizenship education. When we ask students to pause and reflect on what they're learning, we give them opportunities to synthesize and process their learning experiences, and to understand themselves and the world in deeper and more meaningful ways.

At the beginning of the Covid 19 experience in North America, service learning expert Cathryn Berger Kaye noticed there weren't a lot of online spaces for young people to post their thoughts, feelings and experiences. Cathy and her CBK Associates team of consultants decided to create a platform for dialogue, and Documentar was born. 

Are you interested in applying some Changemaker Superpowers in your classroom to transform your students into changemakers who participate in positive, purposeful change in the world? You can download my free PDF kit here.

It's time! The school year has started and classes have begun or are about to start. There's that fabulous buzz in the air that signals to everyone that a brand new year has launched and that the year lays ahead, a blank canvas. Already, your mind might be thinking about headlines for stories you would like to see this year.