SUSTAINABLE CLASSROOMS
The Classrooms Division trains educators of all kinds on sustainability and how they can bring a sustainable lens into their classrooms.
Our three- to four-hour professional development training provides educators with the confidence, tools, and community needed to empower students to make lifelong sustainable choices. Using our standards-aligned curriculum, a project-based learning assignment, and student-led home investigations as a base, we explore how to use a sustainability lens in any formal or informal K-12 classroom.
How We Work
Build Confidence
- Define sustainability
- Begin understanding key issues, solutions, and opportunities
- Discuss how to use sustainability as a lens in any classroom
Provide Tools
- Distribute our TN-standards-aligned Sustainable Classrooms curriculum
- Investigate additional lessons, extensions, frameworks, and resources to go beyond our curriculum
Provide Tools
- Distribute our TN-standards-aligned Sustainable Classrooms curriculum
- Investigate additional lessons, extensions, frameworks, and resources to go beyond our curriculum
Foster Community
- Share access to our Sustainable Classrooms Learning Community to collaborate, network, and learn regularly with other trained educators
- Credit points toward our Workplaces Certification process
Types of Trainings
Hub Training
Team Training
Classrooms Testimonials
"Overall, teaching sustainability helps my students become responsible global citizens. They are able to consider the long-term consequences and outcomes of their actions to make better decisions, becoming better knowledgeable individuals in their life stages.”
- Carlos Calderón, Sustainable Classrooms Educator
"Thank you for empowering me, making this accessible, providing representation (in slides, quotes, sources), and being an ally in action! Thank you!"
Consuelo Torres, Sustainable Classrooms Educator
"Interacting with Urban Green Lab helped me find tools and words to start being more sustainable that I didn't have. I feel like I have a place to start from now and have hope to actually be able to be sustainable and share about sustainability in multiple areas of life that I didn't consider before."
Upcoming Trainings
Reach out to schedule a Team Training for your school or organization. Please allow at least four weeks for scheduling.
Sustaining Educators: A Sustainable Classrooms Learning Community Series
Are you a Sustainable Classrooms trained educator? You are invited to join us for our Sustaining Educators event as part of the Sustainable Classrooms Learning Community Series. It will be a time to connect with other trained educators, recharge, hear from sustainability experts, and access resources.
To learn more about the Classrooms Division, contact Sofia Guerrero at sofia@urbangreenlab.org.
Key Successes
Trained 346 educators on how to teach about sustainable living
Reached 126 schools across seven school districts
Hosted 33 trainings since 2018, a majority for Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS)
Selected accomplishments since the program started. Updated August 14, 2024.
47%
Percentage of MNPS schools with teachers trained to teach sustainable living