The Cloud Institute offers professional development to our primary audience - K-12 educators and administrators. We also offer professional development for government officials, faith-based communities, and other organizations and networks interested in moving toward sustainability. We offer both standard and customized professional development, as well as professional development to accompany our full courses of study.

Our professional development ranges from one day workshops to five year initiatives. Sessions can be delivered on-site in schools, in teacher centers, in conference/workshop sites, or in our "green office/workshop space" in New York City.

We work in the field of education for sustainability, and in the following main content areas:

• Sustainability and Sustainability Education
• Economics and Business/Entrepreneurship
• Civics and Participatory Democracy
• Design and Change

Categories of Professional Development

We provide four levels of professional development:
Awareness Level - To introduce or increase knowledge
Characteristics: Interactive programs designed to introduce new ideas, core content and concepts, and habits of mind associated with sustainability. Time demands range from two and one half hours to ten hours. Involves a relatively short period of time and can include very small or very large numbers of people.
Expectations: Increase in participants' knowledge base or understanding of sustainability and education for sustainability.

Skill Development - To increase skills or abilities to use specific strategies, tools, or processes.
Characteristics: Interactive, hands-on, modeling, and guided practice activities that seek to help participants develop skills in the use of strategies, tools, activities, and/or habits of mind into their teaching and assessment practices. Time demands range from three to five hours for highly specific and isolated skills (i.e. use of specific systems thinking tools) to 15 to 30 hours for more complex and integrated skills (i.e. strengths / gap analysis of curricula).
Expectations: Use of skills in sustainability education and assessment activities. (Prerequisite: Ten hour Awareness Level Program.)

Curriculum/Assessment Development and Implementation* - To increase skills and abilities to design and develop curricula and assessments that embed the content and habits of mind of education for sustainability into specific courses.
Characteristics: Interactive, hands-on, modeling, guided practice, self- and peer review, refinement, and reflection activities that seek to help participants develop learner-centered and appropriate curriculum and assessment materials and processes. Time demands range from 50 to 150 hours.
Expectations: Diversified and appropriate use of learner-centered sustainability education curriculum and assessment materials and processes. (Prerequisite: Ten hour Awareness Level Program and Skill Development Program.)

Leadership Development - To increase skills and abilities to provide professional development in education for sustainability.
Characteristics: Interactive, hands-on, modeling, guided practice, self- and peer review, refinement, and reflection activities that seek to help participants teach other teachers and educational stakeholders. Time demands range from 120 to 300 hours (including time to learn what they need to teach). In the short term, this is a program that invests significant resources into one person. In the long-run, this can significantly reduce the costs of awareness, skill-development, and curriculum and assessment development programs.
Expectations: Teachers develop and implement professional development programs in education for sustainability for other teachers and educational stakeholders. (Prerequisite: Ten hour Awareness Level Program and Skill Development Program.)
*for school based clients only

Our professional development ranges from one-hour sessions, to three-to-five year programs. Our signature professional development program begins with a full-day introduction to sustainability and education for sustainability. Following this first day, we recommend that clients work with us to determine their goals and, based on those goals, we will devise a three-year, ongoing program of continuous learning and improvement. Click here for further information on our three to five year implementations.

We also have professional development that accompanies our full courses of study - a year-long high school business and entrepreneurship course and a semester-long high school civics course. Professional development for both of these courses begins with the full-day introduction to sustainability.

Sample Standard Professional Development Programs

Here are a few specific examples of past professional development programs (click on the title for further description): We suggest beginning all professional development programs with a full day introduction. See consulting section for three to five year implementations.

Sustainability and Sustainability Education

• Introduction to Sustainability
• Core Content and Habits of Mind of Education for Sustainability
• Systems Thinking/System Dynamics Education
• The Mathematics of Global Change

Civics and Participatory Democracy

• Inventing the Future: Leadership and Participation for the 21st Century ("Inventing the Future")
• Characteristics of Participation/Leadership in Sustainable Community Development
• "The Commons"
• From Global Hunger to Sustainable Food Systems
• Changing Consumption Patterns

Economics and Entrepreneurship

• Ecological/Sustainable Economics
• Business and Entrepreneurship Education for the 21st Century (BEE 21)

Design and Change

• Schools that Learn in Communities that Learn
• Place as Curriculum
• Biomimicry
• Cradle to Cradle Design

Our products and services evolve with the ever changing flow of innovative thinking and content that characterize teaching, learning, and sustainable practices across the disciplines and professional sectors.

Sample Customized Professional Development

Here are some examples of professional development programs tailored to the clients' specific needs and audiences:

• One-day workshop for a government agency on sustainability basics
• Two-day workshop for members of a faith-based community including an introduction to sustainability, and aligning sustainability with their faith
• One-week professional development series beginning with a one-day introduction to sustainability, for the staff of an independent K-12 school
• Three-week summer institute for a state-wide network of high school business educators
• Three-year initiative for staff of a high school, to focus on sustainability education and student-centered learning

For more information

For more information and/or pricing information, or to arrange to bring The Cloud Institute's high-quality professional development to your school or school system, please contact Rebecca Schept, Coordinator of Trainings, at (212) 645-9930 ext *826 or email Rebecca@sustainabilityed.org.