Discovery Education, the worldwide leader in education solutions, recently announced it has partnered with Subaru of America, Inc., LyondellBasell, Nucor, Honeywell, and the National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF) to launch the Sustainability Education Coalition. This first-of-its-kind initiative is focused on empowering over 10 million students by 2030 to serve as ambassadors for sustainability by providing the digital resources K-12 students need to make informed decisions and take responsible actions supporting sustainability.
Coalition partners are united in the goal of empowering tomorrow’s changemakers by connecting classroom learning to various sustainability themes. The Sustainability Education Coalition is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and is driving forward sustainability education at an unprecedented scale through a five-pronged framework:
- Equitable access to high quality learning resources: Investing in under-resourced schools so students can benefit from the best-in-class Discovery Education Experience.
- Innovative Community Engagement Pathway: Introducing global challenges through a local lens; ensuring students can connect concepts to their local communities.
- Challenge-Based Learning Informed by Partners: Delivering engaging, high-quality resources and learning experiences for students.
- National Visibility: Working to promote a national conversation to elevate sustainability education.
- Research and Impact Framework: Launching impact studies to measure trends and progression of sustainability attitudes.
Each partner provides expertise, insight, and access to enable the creation of high-quality and standards-aligned dynamic digital resources and will help provide under-resourced schools across the United States no-cost access to the award-winning Discovery Education Experience learning platform.
Subaru of America, Inc., a pre-existing partner with Discovery Education, was the catalyst in launching the Sustainability Education Coalition. Through a multi-year partnership with Discovery Education, over 7,000 students in Camden, NJ, received access to high-quality digital content, and teachers were given the professional development tools to implement new digital resources into their lesson plans. As this work highlighted the need for increased materials connecting students to sustainability education and the importance of expanding efforts nationally, additional founding members joined the coalition.
“The need for comprehensive sustainability education has never been more pressing,” said Amy Nakamoto, Discovery Education General Manager of Social Impact. “Recent statistics reveal a concerning trend: while the majority of teachers recognize the importance of teaching students about climate and sustainability, only half of them are currently addressing these vital topics within their classrooms. We are excited to work with Subaru of America, LyondellBasell, Nucor, Honeywell, and the National Environmental Education Foundation on a joint goal to empower educators and students with the resources they need to make informed decisions and take responsible actions supporting sustainability.”
Learn more about the Sustainability Education Coalition at sustainabilityeducationcoalition.org.
